Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL

Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.

Bill read the Third time and passed.

ROUND OAK STEEL WORKS (LEVEL CROSSINGS) BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

TEES VALLEY AND CLEVELAND WATER BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Income Tax (Schedule A)

Mr. Hale: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is now pre-pared to introduce provisions to abolish Schedule A tax.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. E. S. Simon): Amendments to the Finance Bill have been put down on this subject. In these circumstances, my right hon. Friend feels that he ought to wait to see if one of them is selected in order to use that occasion to communicate his views to the House of Commons.

Mr. Hale: Surely this is a somewhat new constitutional procedure? Will the Financial Secretary explain to us why on earth the principle has ever been evolved that. because our climate is so had and I am compelled to buy an expensive roof to put over my head, that is a source of

revenue to me, and why I should have to pay the Chancellor for providing an office for my constituents and a permanent receptacle for soap and pools advertisements?

Mr. Simon: This is a matter on which views are divided on both sides of the House, and probably it would be more conveniently debated in amplitude when the Committee stage of the Finance Bill is resumed.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent resolutions he has received from organisations in Scotland calling for the abolition of Schedule A tax; and what has been the nature of his reply.

Mr. Simon: So far as I can trace, my right hon. Friend received representations before the Budget from one such body. That was acknowledged in the usual way.

Mr. Hughes: Is not the Minister aware that the Scottish Tory Party—

Mr. Ross: The Unionist Party.

Mr. Hughes: —the Unionist Party passed a unanimous resolution and that indignant property owners demanded the abolition of this tax? Can it be that they rely on me? How does the hon. and learned Gentleman explain that this body is so inefficient that it cannot even send its letters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Simon: My right hon. Friend was aware of the resolution which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but the hon. Gentleman, of course, is always an acceptable channel of communication.

Old-age Pensions (Taxation)

Mr. Hale: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is prepared to introduce provisions exempting old-age pension from Income Tax.

Mr. Simon: No, Sir.

Mr. Hale: Would not the Financial Secretary consider the principle of this matter? What happens is that we say to the old-age pensioner, "The Government will contribute 20 per cent. of your savings if you will be good enough to contribute, and if you survive we will take the chance of pinching 50 per cent. of it back when you get old". This really is a


swindle. It is very undesirable and, as the amount involved is very small indeed, would not the hon. and learned Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend to look at it again?

Mr. Simon: Successive Governments have taken the view that the right principle is to make the contributions deductible in arriving at the taxable income, and then tax the pension itself, just like any other income. It must be remembered that the retirement pension is payable without regard to the pensioner's means, and therefore is payable to millionaire and pauper alike.

Entertainments Duty (Cinemas)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer his estimate of the annual saving in administrative costs which would result from the abolition of Entertainments Duty.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. F. J. Erroll): There would be a small saving, but a precise estimate cannot be given.

Mr. Swingler: As much paper work is involved in collecting this tax, and in view of the fact that the death rate from Entertainments Duty on cinemas is so high—866 cinemas have closed in the last five years—does not the Economic Secretary think that it would be a good idea to make this saving now, even if it is only a small one?

Mr. Erroll: No. The saving would be very small, and the cost of collection is as economical as in other fields of Customs and Excise work.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the revenue from Entertainments Duty comes from cinemas currently operating at a loss; and what estimate of the closure of cinemas he has made in calculating the revenue from Entertainments Duty for the coming year.

Mr. Erroll: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available. As regards the second part, it is not the practice to disclose the basis on which Budget estimates are made.

Mr. Swingler: Is not the Economic Secretary aware that the Entertainments Duty on cinemas is being collected from

cinemas which are operated at a loss? Is not he aware that this is grossly unfair, and, in view of the widespread interest in the very respectably supported new Clause recently put down on the Notice Paper for the reduction of Entertainments Duty on cinemas through the Finance Bill, will he say if we should now take it that the Chancellor has suffered a change of heart on this subject?

Mr. Erroll: I think I should remind the hon. Gentleman that the duty is levied on the cinema-goer when he enters the cinema, and the cinema passes on the duty to the Customs and Excise. This is not a tax on cinemas as such. Indeed, a number are exempt. As regards the new Clause on the Notice Paper for the Finance Bill, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to anticipate any debate that might take place upon it.

Mr. Gower: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the approximate loss of Entertainments Duty due to closures of cinemas in Wales during the last twelve months; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Erroll: I regret that it is not possible to make the estimate for which my hon. Friend asks, and in the circumstances my right hon. Friend has no statement to make.

Mr. Gower: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received from cinema companies, and from individuals in Wales, since 1st January last, regarding the effect of Entertainment Duty upon cinemas.

Mr. Erroll: Nine up to the end of last week.

Mr. Gower: Does my hon. Friend recall how during the most trying days of the war many tributes were paid to the contribution of the cinema industry in sustaining morale? At this moment when the Home Secretary is concerned about certain forms of hooliganism, might it not be a good thing in his future assessment of the position that notice should be taken of the contribution which the cinema industry has made in this field too?

Mr. Erroll: Yes, Sir. I think it is possible to say as much of many different forms of desirable entertainment.

Personal Income

Mr. Jay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the main economic activities. other than industrial production, which contributed to a rising real personal disposable income per head between 1954 and 1958.

Mr. Erroll: The trend of real personal disposable income per head depends on a number of factors besides the level of industrial production. These include in the first place production outside industry, that is, in agriculture, transport, distribution, public administration and other service industries; in the second place, the movement of the terms of trade; and in the third place, the proportionate share of the real national income accruing as disposable income to persons.

Mr. Jay: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he has not even tried to answer my Question, which was not "Which are the other forms of production?", but "Which were the ones which have risen since 1954?" Will he not come clean now and admit that practically the whole of this alleged rise in real incomes per head since 1954 has been due to the fall in import prices?

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir; certainly not. I have tried to give as full and as helpful an answer as possible to the Question, but this is a rather complicated subject. With regard to the various factors which have made a difference, I would mention the fall in the cost of defence.

Mr. Jay: Is not the Economic Secretary aware that ever statistician knows that the real cause of any rise in real personal disposable incomes has been the fall in import prices? If he really contests that, would he mention one other form of economic activity which has significantly risen in these years?

Mr. Erroll: I accept that the fall in import prices is one of the factors, but other factors have been at work.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is not the main economic activity the organisation of a free society under this Government?

Mr. Jay: Can the Economic Secretary give us a statistical measure of that?

Mr. Erroll: Not without notice.

Mr. Jay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the rise in real personal dis-

posable income per head between 1955 and the lastest available period.

Mr. Erroll: It is estimated that real personal disposable income per head increased by 6·3 per cent. between 1955 and 1958.

Mr. Jay: Does not that show that much the greater part of the rise which the Chancellor has claimed—2·7 per cent. a year—occurred in the first year, between 1954 and 1955, and that since then progress has been extremely slow, even on that definition?

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir. The figures which I have just given are not inconsistent with my right hon. Friend's Answer earlier. What I am beginning to feel is that some suspicion is growing that the right hon. Gentleman does not know what real personal disposable income is.

Mr. Gower: Is there not a good deal of evidence that we are now prepared as a nation to take another bold step forward in this direction?

Mr. Erroll: I am glad to confirm that.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what real personal disposable income is?

Mr. Erroll: I should be glad to forward the right hon. Gentleman the definition and at the same time refer him to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend a few weeks ago.

Local Authorities (Housing Loans)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the loans for council house building is being provided by the Public Works Loan Board; and what proposals he has for increasing it.

Mr. Erroll: It is estimated that, in the financial year, 1958–59, approximately 8 per cent. of local authority loans for house building came from the Public Works Loan Board. My right hon. Friend does not propose any change in the present arrangements under which the Public Works Loan Board lends only in so far as local authorities are unable to raise their capital in the market.

Mr. Allaun: Is not this exceedingly low proportion of 8 per cent. due to the high interest rate of 5¾ per cent. for loans


over thirty years? If the Government really wanted to expand council house building, could they not either provide special low interest loans themselves or make a grant to the Board so that it could reduce its rate to 3 per cent., which was the rate up to 1951?

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir. With regard to the first part of the supplementary question, we do not accept that the low percentage is an indication of excessively high interest rates. We contend that the present arrangements fully provide for the supply of local authority needs. With regard to making loans at a specially low rate of interest available to local authorities, that would be contrary to the policy which has been explained by my right hon. Friend on many occasions.

European Economic Community

Mr. Leather: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what principal items of Commonwealth imports into the United Kingdom were covered by the terms proposed for United Kingdom membership of the European Common Market; and what percentage, by value, these items make up of the total imports from the Commonwealth.

Mr. Erroll: If the United Kingdom were to become a member of the European Economic Community on the same terms as the present members the common external tariff of the Six would apply to Commonwealth goods, including foodstuffs and raw materials, entering the United Kingdom. This would mean that over a wide field Commonwealth goods would cease to enjoy free entry into the United Kingdom.

Mr. Leather: Can my hon. Friend give us some idea of what percentage of the overall picture this represents so that we can really see how big the problem is?

Mr. Erroll: It is not possible to give an exact percentage because the terms of the Question are necessarily hypothetical. The common external tariff of the Six has not yet been finally worked out.

Mr. Jay: Will it mean a tariff on Canadian wheat, for instance?

Mr. Erroll: I would not say that it would mean a tariff on Canadian wheat, but commodities which are admitted duty-free into this country and would also, as far as we know, be admitted duty-free into the Common Market countries amount to only about 15 per cent. of total Commonwealth imports into this country. With regard to wheat. I should like notice of the question.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the Government's policy with regard to the formation of a European Free Trade Area which does not include the common market countries.

Mr. Erroll: As has often been stated, a multilateral association of the members of the European Economic Community with the other members of O.E.E.C. remains the objective of Her Majesty's Government. We continue to examine all possible steps, including an association of the kind to which the hon. Member refers, which might help towards this end.

Mr. Cronin: May we take it that the Government will be undeterred by their previous failures and will persevere in getting a proper solution?

Mr. Erroll: I assure the hon. Gentleman that our ultimate goal remains the association of the Six with the other countries of O. E. E. C.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is not it true that at the moment the Government are sitting back and doing nothing and merely waiting for some initiative to come from the Six?

Mr. Erroll: No. I could not accept the implication in that supplementary question.

Mr. Oakshott: Is not it true that under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General the Inter-Governmental Committee of O.E.E.C. worked for a very long time to try to reach some form of multilateral association? Will he recognise the very real political and economic dangers of a continued schism in Europe. and do all he can to bring about this association?

Mr. Erroll: I know that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General will be very glad to read the tribute which my


hon. Friend has paid to him, and will continue to work as hard as he can in this direction.

Estate Duty

Mr. Russell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will devise a scheme for using the capital surrendered as Estate Duty for investment in the Commonwealth or some other useful field instead of spending it as revenue and thereby reducing the nation's wealth.

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir. It would be a departure from accepted principles of Government finance to hypothecate particular items of revenue for the sort of purpose suggested. In any case, since a large proportion of Government capital expenditure is met from current revenue, I could not accept the implication of the Question.

Mr. Russell: Would it not be better if our finances were put on the right basis to start with, namely. that capital should be used for capital purposes and not revenue, which would mean reversing sonic of the present arrangements?

Mr. Erroll: In 1958–59. Estate Duty yielded about £170 million but Government expenditure on capital account far exceeded that, amounting to about £1,000 million.

Dividends and Unearned Income

Mr. Lewis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what revenue was received by the Treasury during the last financial year from taxation of dividends on shares and unearned income generally t and how much this sum would have been increased if there had been an additional old-age pension levy of Is. in the £ on all taxes resulting from unearned income.

Mr. Simon: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of the Question is not available. It is not practicable to apportion the tax revenue from mixed incomes between earned and investment income. It follows that the information asked for in the second part of the Question is also not available.

Mr. Lewis: As the overwhelming majority of the poorer people and those on low incomes cannot afford increased contributions under the National Insurance scheme, will the Chancellor, if and

when he increases old-age pensions, adopt the suggestion in my Question? The overwhelming majority of the people feel that it is better to stop this money out of unearned income than out of income which is earned by the sweat of the worker's brow.

Mr. Simon: The supplementary question rests on a hypothetical basis, but I will draw the hon. Gentleman's suggestion to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Building Societies (Mortgate Interest Rates)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what complaints he has received since the beginning of 1959 about the excessive rates of mortgage interest charged by building societies and what replies he has made.

Mr. Erroll: The Treasury has received about a dozen complaints about the rate of interest charged on building society mortgages. The reply has been that the rate. of interest on mortgages must re- main a matter for settlement between a society and its borrowers.

Mr. Lipton: In spite of today's announcement of a cut, possibly prompted by this Question on the Order Paper, is not it a fact that, with one or two honourable exceptions, the building societies have been too greedy for too long, very quick to put up the rates but very slow to bring them down? Is not it, therefore. a matter for consideration that, if the building societies want trustee status, the Government should have some say in deciding what the interest rates should be? At present the building societies are complete dictators in this respect.

Mr. Erroll: So far from their being complete dictators, there is a large unsatisfied demand for loans from building societies.

Import Prices

Mr. Cronin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an approximate estimate as to how much the balance of payments has been affected from September, 1957, to April, 1959, as a result of the fall in import prices.

Mr. Erroll: No, Sir. While the United Kingdom's balance of payments in the period referred to undoubtedly benefited


from the fall in import prices, it is not possible to make any dependable quantitative estimate of that benefit. Some items in the balance of payments, such as the cost of imports, were affected in our favour; others moved the other way, as for example income from investments abroad and export earnings. The effect of any one factor cannot be isolated and measured.

Mr. Cronin: Will not the hon. Gentleman at least agree that the effect has been a lucky windfall of about £350 million a year, and that that sum accounts almost entirely for the improvement in the balance of payments, and also for the diminution of inflation which has occurred in the last year or so?

Mr. Erroll: No. I could not accept the hon. Gentleman's argument, because it so happens that at the beginning of the period which he has selected import prices were abnormally high and much higher than they had been for the previous three or four years, so that it is quite incorrect to suggest that we have made a windfall gain, as he described it.

Local Government Loan Debt

Mr. Birch: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of local government debt outstanding on 31st March, 1958, was due to be repaid in five years or less and in one year or less; and whether he will give corresponding figures for 31st March, 1954.

Mr. Erroll: A survey was recently made of the composition of local authority loan debt, as at 31st March, 1955, and 31st March, 1958, for England and Wales, and as at 15th May in those two years for Scotland. The results, which covered 98.8 per cent. of the total debt of all authorities in Great Britain, show that the proportion of debt repayable within one year rose from 5.5 per cent. in 1955 to 11.5 per cent. in 1958, while the proportion repayable within five years rose from 11 6 per cent. to 23.1 per cent. between the same dates. There is no similar information for the year 1954.

Mr. Birch: Can my hon. Friend say how the trend is continuing? Has he any indication of what has happened in subsequent years?

Mr. Erroll: No. We have no indication of the trend because we have not

undertaken a further survey, but we are considering whether it would be desirable to introduce a periodic survey so that we could have this information more readily available.

Mr. Jay: Do the Government welcome this trend?

Mr. Erroll: They see no reason to disapprove of it.

Civil Service Clerical Officers (Arbitration Award)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the payments due to clerical officers under the arbitration award made last February will be made.

Mr. Simon: All payments due under the award for the period 1st July, 1957, to 30th November, 1958, were made by 31st March. Most clerical officers will receive the new rates, with the rest of the arrears, by the end of May and nearly all 'the remainder by the end of June.

Mr. Lipton: Why does it take so long for the Government to meet their obligations in this respect? Some of these clerical officers will have had to wait many months before they get the money to which they are properly and legally entitled.

Mr. Simon: The reason why it has taken some time to complete payments is the enormous complexity of the calculations of the arrears.

Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958

Sir H. Roper: the Chancellor of the Exchequer to how many applicants in England and in Cornwall, respectively, the granting of financial assistance under the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958, has been approved, to the most recent convenient date.

Mr. Erroll: Fourteen applications from England—excluding Wales—have been approved. This total includes six from Cornwall.

Sir H. Roper: How many applications from Cornwall have been received, and how many have been rejected?

Mr. Erroll: The total number of firm and eligible applications received in respect of Cornwall is 22, of which 7 have been rejected while 9 are still under consideration.

Local Authorities, Scotland (Loans)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider assisting local authorities in Scotland to proceed with schemes which will reduce unemployment by providing such local authorities with loans at a reduced rate of interest.

Mr. Erroll: The rates of interest on loans to local authorities from the Public Works Loan Board are fixed to reflect the rates payable by local authorities in the open market. My right hon. Friend could not agree to preferential interest rates for those authorities which borrow from the Board.

Mr. Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many local authorities would go forward with schemes which would give work to the unemployed if the rate of interest were reduced? Is he again putting the interest of the moneylenders before the interest of the unemployed?

Mr. Erroll: No. We are far more interested in the maintenance of a sound and stable currency.

Mr. Ross: Is not the Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland is appealing to local authorities to get started with works and that one of the things which is preventing them is the fact that rates of interest are prohibitive? What does he intend to do about it?

Mr. Erroll: I do not accept that the rates are prohibitive, but it is certainly right. that local authorities should borrow in the market, just like everybody else, and that for those who are not able to do so there should be the facilities of the Public Works Loan Board.

Mr. Jay: Why should local authorities have to pay a higher rate on interest for public money than the rates at which the Government are lending to building societies?

Mr. Erroll: Because the two circumstances are different. Rates for Government lending to building societies are fixed in accordance with the arrangements made between the Government and the building societies, and the rates at which the societies are able to borrow. The rates for loans to local authorities through the Public Works Loan Board are fixed so

as to be in alignment with the rates paid by local authorities which are able to borrow in the market.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Children's Shoes

Miss Burton: the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that discussions on standards for children's shoes have now been going on for more than four years; on what date those relating to certain components for children's shoes were commenced; and when he expects these to be concluded.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Rodgers): Yes, Sir. I understand that discussions between the British Standards Institution and footwear manufacturers on standards for certain components of children's shoes began in September last. I hope that satisfactory standards will emerge, but I cannot predict how soon that might be.

Miss Burton: Does not even the Board of Trade get a little tired of this procrastination, which is a polite word for the delay? Does not the hon. Gentleman think that something should be done to bring these discussions to an early conclusion?

Mr. Rodgers: I think we ought to get this whole problem into more perspective than the hon. Lady's questions sometimes suggest. Through the survey recently carried out by the Consumer Advisory Council it was found that most people are reasonably satisfied with children's shoes and that 90 per cent. said that they would buy the same make again, while 63 per cent. said that they found nothing wrong.

Miss Burton: But two-thirds of the people replying said that they were not satisfied with children's shoes. Will not the hon. Gentleman look at his figures again and not choose those which suit his purpose.

Mr. Rodgers: So far as I am aware, only 10 per cent. expressed criticism of children's shoes.

Miss Burton: Sixty per cent.

Douglas, Lanarkshire

Mr. Patrick Maitland: the President of the Board of Trade whether, as this would help employment in the


Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee area of Lanarkshire as hitherto defined, he will be willing to consider applications for help from firms willing to settle at Douglas or Douglas, West.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Such applications would be fully considered if they would help employment in the adjoining D. A. T. A. C. areas.

Mr. Maitland: While thanking my hon. Friend for that far more forthcoming reply than I have heard hitherto, may I ask him to bear in mind that there is considerable housing for key industrial workers available at this place which is only a few miles outside the D. A. T. A. C. area as hitherto defined? One or two cases have already come to my attention of firms that might be interested in going there. Will he do his utmost to give them all possible help?

Mr. Rodgers: I am willing to listen to any representations from my hon. Friend.

Commonwealth Foodstuffs (Import)

Mr. Leather: asked the President of the Board of Trade what percentage of United Kingdom total imports from the Commonwealth is made up of foodstuffs.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan): About 43 per cent. in 1958.

Mr. Leather: Does not this indicate that there is in fact quite a high percentage—this 43 per cent. of foods and the 15 per cent. which we were given last week for commodities—in which there are already zero tariffs between ourselves and the Common Market? Does not this indicate that there is at least 58 per cent. of Commonwealth trade which would not be affected at all by our joining the Common Market and that, therefore, the problem involved is not nearly as big as has been made out?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: I think that goes rather wide of the Question that I was asked, but I am sure my hon. Friend's arithmetic is extremely good.

Flower Bulbs (Quota)

Mr. Cronin: asked the President of the Board of Trade what principles will be applied in dealing with applications for additional bulb quota; and, in view of the fact that the right to an import

quota has a substantial marketable value, what steps will be taken to prevent persons from obtaining a greater quota than they intend to use.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: An advisory committee, representative of the various interests concerned, will assist the Board of Trade to allocate the additional quota equitably between applicants. I am sure that the committee will have the hon. Member's point well in mind.
Any allocations which have not been used by 31st January next will lapse and will be reallocated.

Mr. Cronin: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the effect of the quota is that the recipients of the quota make excessive profits and the consumers pay too high a price? Would not the most satisfactory arrangement be to abolish the quota altogether?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: My right hon. Friend has made it quite clear that we hope ultimately to be able to abolish this and other restrictions.

Major Legge-Bourke: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that there are some areas in England where bulbs are produced and that an unrestricted importation of Dutch bulbs would he highly damaging to those areas?

Advertisements (Hire-Purchase) Act

Mr. Frank Allaun: the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received concerning breaches of the Advertisements (Hire-Purchase) Act; and what action he proposes.

Miss Burton: the President of the Board of Trade how many cases have been taken up by his Department under the Advertisements (Hire-Purchase) Act since this came into force some fifteen months ago.

Mr. J. Rodgers: With permission, will answer Questions Nos. 30 and 35 together.

Miss Burton: On a point of order. My hon. Friend's Questions refers to possible future action by the Board of Trade. My Question is something quite different and asks what has happened in


the past. In those circumstances might we not have Question No. 35 answered separately.

Mr. Speaker: We had better wait to hear the Answer. It may cover both Questions.

Mr. Rodgers: With permission, I will try to answer this Question and No. 35 together.
About sixty cases have been looked into by my Department, of which twenty were reported by the public. In none of these cases has the Board of Trade thought that prosecution would he justified.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that I can provide him with a dozen cases in which the trade associations have received large numbers of complaints. Further, is he aware that trade associations have been told by the Board of Trade that it has no intention of prosecuting, and in fact there has not been a single prosecution in England under this Act? What is the good of passing laws if they are not to be acted upon?

Mr. Rodgers: In the first place, it is open to any organisation or any member of the public to bring a prosecution under the 1957 Act. Secondly, the Board of Trade is anxious that the Act should be observed. Our view is that it is being generally observed and we do not regard it as appropriate for a Government Department to take purely penal proceedings under it where isolated breaches of the law may have occurred due merely to ignorance.

Miss Burton: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that his answer is unsatisfactory and is complete nonsense. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that commerce in general is quite convinced that the Board of Trade has no intention of prosecuting and that it is further convinced that the Board of Trade does not understand what the first Sections of the Act mean and is not therefore willing to prosecute —[An HON. MEMBER: "Non-sense."]—The hon. Gentleman does not know as much about it as I do. Will the Parliamentary Secretary be prepared to receive a deputation of traders on this matter?

Mr. Rodgers: Since we are apparently exchanging civilities and compliments to each other, may I say that the hon. Lady

in her Question on 7th May of this year was entirely inaccurate. The 1957 Act does not apply to all hire-purchase advertisements nor does it require the cash price and the amount of each instalment to be stated. The hon. Lady has misled the House in sonic of her own statements.

Miss Burton: On a point of order. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that where—[Interruption.] May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that the statement he has just made—

Mr. Speaker: I cannot answer whether the hon. Member is aware of anything or not. I am not privy to his mind.

New Factories and Extensions

Captain Pilkington: the President of the Board of Trade how many factory building projects and extensions were authorised from 1946 to 1951 and from 1951 to 1958, respectively.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven projects in the years 1946 to 1951 inclusive, and 16,095 projects in the years 1952 to 1958.

Captain Pilkington: Does my hon. Friend not agree that this is another example of Tory success compared with Socialist failure?

Mr. Rodgers: I entirely agree with my hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. D. Jones: Could the hon. Gentleman give the respective values of the two totals?

Mr. Rodgers: I do not have the figure but I can give the square footage. In 1946–51 it was 243.5 million sq. ft. In 1952–58 it was 4076 million sq. ft.

Mr. Gower: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many new factory projects and extensions, respectively, were authorised in Wales between November, 1951, and the latest convenient date; and what were the comparable figures between 1945 and October, 1951.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Five hundred and seventy new factories and extensions of over 5,000 sq. ft. from November, 1951 to end-March. 1959, and 566 from 1945 to October, 1951: of these, 151 and 203 respectively were new buildings on new sites.

Mr. Gower: Am I right in saying that in terms of creation of new employment, some of the most impressive authorisations have occurred quite recently?

Mr. Rodgers: That is a statement of fact.

Mr. G. Thomas: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that many of these new factories are now no longer employing people and that our anxiety is to see these factories fully employed? If he can help in that way we will be grateful.

Mr. Rodgers: We certainly want to do all we can to stimulate employment everywhere.

Mr. S. Silverman: To complete the statistics and present a more useful picture, can the Parliamentary Secretary say how many factories have gone out of production in the same period?

Mr. Rodgers: If the hon. Gentleman would like to put down a Question on that topic I will try to answer it.

Mr. Ross: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many new projects were started in Development Areas in Ayrshire in 1958;and how many new jobs were thus created.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Two, which should provide approximately 180 new jobs.

Mr. Ross: This is fantastic. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the Government should be in no way surprised that unemployment is serious in this area of Ayrshire, as much of it arises from decisions taken departmentally by the Government in respect of establishments under their control? It is not good enough for the President of the Board of Trade to go round the country and round the world dropping bricks when he should be building factories in Ayrshire to cope with this unemployment, which is created by the Government themselves. Only two projects and 180 jobs—shocking !

Mr. Willey: asked the President of the Board of Trade what new Government-financed factory building schemes, including extensions, in Sunderland have been approved in 1959.

Mr. J. Rodgers: None, Sir.

Mr. Willey: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this is very discouraging

to us in Sunderland? Will he undertake to visit Sunderland during the Whitsun Recess to see what things are like there?

Mr. Rodgers: I cannot undertake to visit it during the Whitsun Recess, but I will certainly try to go in the near future.

Consumer Protection Committee (Advertising)

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: the President of the Board of Trade to what extent his new Departmental Committee on Consumer Protection will consider how far further safeguards are required against misleading or undesirable advertising; and if he will instruct his committee to consider representations on this subject from the Advertising Inquiry Committee.

Mr. Skeffingtoa: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will instruct the Committee on Consumer Protection. to be set up by his Department, to hear evidence with regard to advertising from business interests concerned, and from members of the general public and organisations concerned with consumer protection, including the Advertising Inquiry Committee.

Mr. Willey: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Committee to be set up by his Department to deal with consumer protection will consider the question of advertising.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Some aspects of advertising will certainly be relevant to the Committee's work, and I have no doubt that it will consider representations from all responsible bodies concerned with its field of inquiry.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Can the Parliamentary Secretary give a more specific answer? Will he be prepared to accept representations from the body mentioned in two of these Questions?

Mr. Rodgers: The Committee is an independent body and it is really up to the Committee to decide from which bodies it will receive evidence.

Mr. Willey: The Parliamentary Secretary will remember that a short while ago the President of the Board of Trade said that he was halfway towards a decision regarding this Committee. Can the Parliamentary Secretary say whether


the President of the Board of Trade will reach the end of the road before we reassemble?

Mr. Rodgers: I hope that we will shortly be able to make an announcement on this subject.

Yemen and Aden Protectorate

Mr. Sorensen: asked the President of the Board of Trade the main United Kingdom exports to and imports from the Yemen and the Aden Protectorate, respectively; and to what extent the imports include the narcotic plant, quat.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: As the Answer is detailed, I will with permission, publish the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Quat is not separately distinguished in the trade returns, but it is thought that there have been no imports of this substance.

Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister of State say whether trade has been improving in the last couple of years and whether any negotiations are taking place with a view to securing further improvement?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: I cannot give the figures without notice.

Following is the information:.



United Kingdom Trade, 1958



Yemen
Aden


Imports
£'000;
£000


TOTAL
105
7,250


of which:




Cotton, raw
21
682


Cotton, seed
78
157


Goatskins
4
—


Sheep and lamb skins, raw
—
115


Petroleum crude and refined
—
5,247


Exports




TOTAL
10
7,657


Of which:




Tobacco manufactures
—
949


Chemicals
2
941


Machinery other than electric
—
879


Electric machinery, etc.
3
647


Road vehicles
—
608


Metal manufactures
—
602


Pulp and waste paper
3
—

Apples

Major Legge-Bourke: the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to protect British apple

growers from imports of subsidised apple juice from France for processing in Great Britain for sale as apple squash.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: If the United Kingdom growers would let me have detailed information about the subsidisation arrangements to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers and of the material injury it is causing, I will consider it, in the usual manner.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I will do my best to do that but that, even so, some of us are getting very concerned at the reluctance of his Department to take action under the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act and always waiting upon the growers themselves when very often the Board of Trade has more readily available information?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: We have always made it quite clear that the initiative for action under this Act must rest with the industry which considers itself to be injured by dumping or subsidisation. Any facts or information which we can give are always at its disposal.

Protection of Industrial Designs (Committee)

Mr. Hornby: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement about a review of the law relating to the protection of industrial designs.

Mr. J. Rodgers: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend has appointed a Committee with the following terms of reference:
To consider and report whether any, and, if so, what, changes are desirable in the law relating to the protection of industrial designs. In framing their recommendations the Committee should include consideration of the desirability of enabling United Kingdom designs to receive cheap and effective protection in other countries on the basis of reciprocity.
I am glad to say that Mr. Kenneth Johnston, Q.C., has consented to act as Chairman.

Mr. Hornby: In thanking my hon. Friend for that statement, may I express the hope that the review will be pressed ahead very quickly, as it is very much needed in many quarters?

Mr. Rodgers: Certainly, we shall proceed with all possible dispatch.

Sewing Machines

Mr. Royle: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent sewing machines are being imported from the Republic of Ireland; and whether they come under Imperial Preference rates.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL. REPORT recent statistics of imports of sewing machines from the Irish Republic. Such machines are entitled to duty-free entry if they are manufactured in the Irish Republic and comply with other prescribed requirements.

Mr. Royle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my information is that these machines are coming from Japan in a knocked-down state and being reassembled in the Irish Republic and re-exported to this country? Will he look into that aspect of the situation?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: Yes. To qualify for preference, at least 50 per cent. of their cost of manufacture must be attributable to Commonwealth expenditure. Simple assembly operations alone would not entitle the machines to be treated as manufactured.

Mr. Royle: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that the situation is being watched in that direction?

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: Yes, I will certainly look into this matter.

Following are the figures:


Imports of domestic sewing machines from the Irish Republic in recent years were:


—
No.
Value (£)


1957
3,382
38,126


1958
11,369
162,946


1959 (January-March)
7,326
112,091

Oral Answers to Questions — ST. GEORGE'S DAY

Mr. N. Pannell: asked the Prime Minister if he will arrange for St. George's Day to be declared an appointed day for the purpose of flying flags on Government buildings.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): This question has been raised from time to time. If there is any general

feeling in England for the change suggested, I will certainly consider it.

Mr. Pannell: In thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that flags are flown from Government buildings in Scotland on St. Andrew's Day and in Wales on St. David's Day? Despite his own Scottish ancestry, will my right hon. Friend purge his mind of prejudice in this matter and concede that flags should be flown from Government buildings in London, which is the capital of England, on St. George's Day?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I will try to bring to it a more objective point of view than those of my English predecessors.

Sir G. Nicholson: How does my right hon. Friend propose to gauge public opinion? Is he aware that poor, oppressed Englishmen would very much appreciate this flying of their symbol sometimes, although they are quite content in the knowledge that they are the dominating partner?

The Prime Minister: Without accepting the proposition in the second part of that supplementary question, I think that one of the ways of judging public opinion is the interest of the House of Commons.

Oral Answers to Questions — NEW CUNARD LINERS

Mr. Short: asked the Prime Minister what reply he has sent to the letter he received from the Town Clerk of Newcastle-upon-Tyne regarding the replacement of the "Queen" liners.

The Prime Minister: The letter from the Town Clerk of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was acknowledged and he was informed that the views of the Council had been noted.

Mr. Short: Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that the shipyards on Tyneside pay a great deal in taxation, as do other shipyards, and that if there is to be a large subvention from public funds to this project, we certainly want the right to tender for the two ships?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, but that stage has not been reached yet. We are awaiting the proposals from the Cunard


Company and there will be quite a long period to discuss the financial aspects of the matter.

Sir J. Hutchison: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is another river interested in the replacement of these vessels, namely, the Clyde?

The Prime Minister: Oh, yes, and I have had questions about the Mersey, too.

Oral Answers to Questions — RADIOACTIVITY

Mr. Warbey: asked the Prime Minister what proportion of strontium 90, relative to other radioactive materials, is present in fall-out from nuclear weapons, in other man-made radiation, and in natural radiation, respectively.

The Prime Minister: At the time that fall-out is deposited in the United Kingdom as the result of nuclear explosions, about 1 per cent. of the deposited radioactivity is due to strontium 90. The reason why it has caused concern is because unlike most of the other radioactive products it finds its way through the diet into human bone and is relatively long-lived.
Strontium 90 is an artificial radioisotope and therefore does not contribute to natural radiation. It is, however, used to a very small extent both industrially and for medical purposes under the most stringent safeguards, and thus makes a minute contribution to the radiation dose received by the population from manmade sources other than nuclear tests.

Mr. Warbey: Does not this information make nonsense of the mystical figures of 100, 22 and between 1 and 5 that the Prime Minister has been waving about in the last week or two? Will he now agree that there is need for special concern about the increase in the deposition of strontium 90 and that there is no room whatever for complacency?

The Prime Minister: The figures stand absolutely unchallenged as regards both the genetic and the somatic effects. There is a Question on the Order Paper concerning the latter, which will be answered separately.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister saying that these figures apply also concerning strontium 90? I understood him

to say that there was very little strontium 90 from natural radiation, which according to these figures is 100 times, or at least 50 times, what is deposited by radioactive fall-out.

The Prime Minister: Yes. But those figures take into account the strontium deposit and they stand proportionately as regards both the genetic and the somatic effects.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister saying that those proportions apply to strontium 90 on its own?

The Prime Minister: Strontium 90 is not a thing on its own. It is something that produces radioactivity. In making these estimates, the amount of radioactivity produced by strontium 90 is taken into account in the calculation.

Captain Pilkington: Even if the amount of strontium 90 reached the level at which, according to the Medical Research Council, it would require immediate attention, would that be the same thing as a danger level or would it be still far below the danger level?

The Prime Minister: That comes on the next Question on the Order Paper. Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will wait for it.

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Prime Minister his estimate of the time that will elapse, assuming that strontium 90 continues in the future to be injected in the atmosphere at the higher rate observed in 1958, before the concentration of this substance reaches the level at which it would require immediate attention.

The Prime Minister: The time that would elapse on the assumption made by the hon. Member before the concentration of strontium 90 in human bone reached the level at which it would require immediate attention would depend on many factors, some of which cannot be forecast at this stage.
Forecasts of future trends on various assumptions were made by the United Nations Scientific Committee. I would add that no nuclear tests, so far as I know, have taken place since the autumn of 1958 and we are actively engaged in negotiating for their complete suspension.

Mr. Fernyhough: Would not the Prime Minister agree that he and his


Government are very inconsistent on the question of pollution of the atmosphere? Is he not aware that it was his Government which introduced the Clean Air Act, which makes it an offence for people to pollute the atmosphere with black smoke? Since strontium 90 is a lot more dangerous than black smoke, does not the Prime Minister consider it desirable to bring in an Amendment to the Clean Air Act so that we can prosecute those who pollute the atmosphere not only with black smoke, but with strontium 90?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but I do not think what drops from the atmosphere from a comparatively small height has any relation to the problem of this particular form of radiation which, added to natural and man-made radiation, makes a very small addition to the dangers to which we are subjected. At the same time, I have tried, I hope without complacency but with objectivity, to give the House the best possible scientific information I can and at the same time to emphasise how anxious I am that we should reach international arrangements to bring these tests to an end.

Mr. Gaitskell: I will try once more to get the position of strontium 90 cleared up. Is it not the case that strontium 90 comes, in the main, from nuclear explosions and not from natural radiation?

The Prime Minister: Of course. It is about 1 per cent. of the radiation which is dropped from nuclear explosions. Most of the radiation consists of strontium 89 and all kinds of other radioactive matter. The advantage of most of them is that they disappear rather quickly. Strontium 90's only importance is that out of the total amount of radiation which results from nuclear tests this particular one, which is only about 1 per cent, of the whole, has a longer life.

Mr. Gaitskell: The Prime Minister has answered questions about the effects of strontium 90, and I appreciate that. I was asking about the causes of it. Is it not the case that the major cause here is, in fact, nuclear explosion and not either natural radiation or radiation caused in other ways?

The Prime Minister: Perhaps I went too quickly for the right hon. Gentleman

to listen to what I am trying to say. Strontium 90 is an artificial product. I must read again what I said. It is an artificial radio-isotope which does not therefore spring from or contribute to natural radiation. It is made for medical purposes and it is made for industrial purposes, and it is only to be considered from the total amount that it adds to radiation as a whole and the character and length of its life.

Mr. Hastings: Am I right in saying that the amount of strontium 90 falling in different parts of the world varies greatly and that the amount of strontium 90 which has fallen and been absorbed by the bones of animals and men varies and is in the case of sheep as much as seventeen times greater in the Welsh mountains than in the plains nearby?

The Prime Minister: I must be careful. I do my best to answer what I can in supplementary questions, but I do not think I could accept the hon. Gentleman's figures without notice. If the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question I will try to answer it accurately. He is quite right in saying that there is considerable variation in different parts of the world in the effect of fall-out.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: the Prime Minister whether he will now lay a Command Paper before the House giving the total fission yield from nuclear tests by Great Britain, the United States of America, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, respectively, in each of the years 1945 to 1958, the latest information about the rate at which the fall-out of fission products reaches the surface of the earth and about the geographical distribution of this fall-out, the latest estimates of the probable genetic damage likely to be caused by this fall-out, and the probable number of cases of leukaemia and cancer of the bone likely to be caused by the release of strontium 90 by such tests.

The Prime Minister: I made a full statement about many of these matters on 28th April, and have since answered a number of Questions arising from it. Information on certain other points was published by the Ministry of Defence on 5th May. Other aspects are covered by the Reports issued by the Medical Research Council and the United Nations Scientific Committee. I do not see any


advantage in trying at this stage to publish in a single document information and estimates, some of them necessarily very tentative, on such varying aspects of so wide a problem.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Would it not be an advantage to hon. Members to have in a readily usable form the information about the total yield of fission products due to tests, which was recently released in the statement made the other day by Dr. Dunning, chief biologist to the United States Atomic Energy Commission, of the casualties due to tests; and the new data about underground and outer space tests, of which the Minister of State spoke in the debate on 27th April? How can hon. Members form a proper judgment on this matter unless they have this new and vitally important information?

The Prime Minister: I have tried to give information on specific points as it is asked for, and at the request of the House I published in HANSARD a very long Answer, trying to co-ordinate the general position as we saw it then. I do not think there is advantage now in trying to produce a White Paper to cover such a very varied field with so many aspects to it. It would take a very long time to do it and to make it accurate. I will continue, I hope to my best ability, to answer the specific points that hon. Members may raise.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is it not clear from the Prime Minister's answer that it is extremely difficult to get the information required in answer to Parliamentary Questions? In view of the vital issues now at stake in the conference at Geneva, ought we not to have another White Paper co-ordinating this information?

The Prime Minister: Of course, I will consider that, but it would take several months to compile. It is a very big job to do this properly, if it is to cover all the points which the right hon. Gentleman wants it to cover. Separate points I will try to deal with in Questions, but I will consider issuing a statement rather on the lines of the seven columns of HANSARD which I filled some weeks ago.

Mr. Gaitskell: In view of the fact that the danger from nuclear tests affects us all, regardless of who sets them off, is it not desirable that we should have a picture of what happens in the world as

a whole rather than in our own country only?

The Prime Minister: Oh, yes, but these figures and answers apply to the world as a whole. The important fact for the world to remember is that nobody has set off a test since October, and that if we succeed in our endeavours nobody, I hope, ever will.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Since the issue of outer space tests and underground tests is still unsettled, is it not desirable to have the new data of which the Minister of State spoke? It has been given to the Russians; it cannot, therefore, be secret; ought it not be made available to hon. Members?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman will put down Questions asking for specific data I will do my best to answer them. I do not think that any hon. Member can complain. I have taken quite a lot of trouble in trying to answer these questions in great detail.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATOMIC POWER STATIONS (PLUTONIUM)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Prime Minister to what extent the amended agreement with the United States of America on co-operation in the use of atomic energy for defence purposes will involve an increase in the planned output of plutonium from British atomic power stations.

The Prime Minister: British nuclear power stations will be operated first and foremost to generate electricity and their output of the by-product plutonium will depend directly on the amount of electricity generated. The plutonium production of the reactors will be unaffected by the Agreement with the United States.

Mr. Warbey: Does that mean that the Prime Minister can give a definite assurance that there is no question of there being any modification of design of atomic power stations in order to produce a greater proportion of plutonium than electrical output?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. We have already installed certain ancillary plant in the first power stations which now exist. Any plutonium which we may exchange with the Americans will come either from the civil nuclear power


stations or from the Atomic Energy Authority's own reactors at Calder Hall or Chapel Cross.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Trade Unionists (Rustication)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what members of the African Miners' Union are still rusticated in Northern Rhodesia; how long they have been restricted in this way; and when freedom of movement is to be restored to them.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery): I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the trade unionists among those persons whose movements were restricted during the emergency on the Copperbelt. Sixteen are restricted at present. Orders against a further fifteen are in abeyance, subject to their continued good conduct. With permission, I will circulate the names in the OFFICIAL REPORT. These persons have been rusticated since the end of November, 1956. Each order is reviewed periodically, with a view to its revocation or suspension, where the Governor is satisfied that it is safe to do so.

Mr. Brockway: Does not that Answer reveal a scandal, that trade union officials should have been kept in restriction for nearly three years now without trial and on no charge? Is that British justice in Northern Rhodesia?

Mr. Amery: They have been kept in detention because the Governor is satisfied, after very careful inquiry, that it is in the interests of the community as a whole.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I understand that a delegation from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions which, as the Minister knows, has helped us in establishing democratic trade unions in the Colonies, is now in Northern Rhodesia. Can we be assured that it will have an opportunity of making representations to the Governor and the Government on these matters?

Mr. Amery: If it were to make representations we should most certainly consider them.

The list of restricted persons as at 11th May is as follows:

Elective orders

Chandwe Musonda.
Jameson Mulenga Chapoloka.
James Latham Sinyangwe.
Robert Simon Mlota.
Jameson Reidson Namitengo.
John Stebbins Phiri.
Sylvester Nkoma.
Amucki Mwale.
Patrick Nyirenda.
Harold Phiri.
Clement Chilembo.
Francis Kafwaya Mukupa.
Daniel Mwamba Nsabashi.
Misheck Jonas Mumba.
Harry Kapaya.
Mathew Mugala.

Orders in abeyance

Mathew De Luxe Nkoloma.
Dickie Kapakoso Ngulube.
Jackson Koya.
Gordon Chindele.
Michael Katongo.
Duncan Chandwe.
Bernard Shula.
Albert Malitonga.
Antonio Chopolani.
Simon Sinkamba.
Alfonso Bwalya.
Harry Bwalya Chiyungi.
Mathew Mwendapole.
Daniel Bwalya.
Warren Munthali.

KENYA

Hola Detention Camp (Deaths)

At the end of Questions—

Mr. K. Robinson: Last Thursday, Mr. Speaker, in the course of supplementary Questions to the Colonial Secretary my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) asked the Colonial Secretary if he would let the House know, immediately the Attorney-General in Kenya had arrived at a decision in the case of Hola detention camp, whether the decision was to prosecute or not. The Colonial Secretary replied:
Yes, Sir, I will do so with the same speed that I have answered these Questions today, after the normal Question Time, because I am very anxious that the House should be kept fully informed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1959; Vol. 605, c. 567.]
There are four Questions on the Order Paper today which would enable the Under-Secretary to carry out that undertaking. May I ask, Sir, whether your permission has been sought by the Under-Secretary to answer those Questions, and,


if not, how the House can require the Minister to carry out the undertaking?

Mr. Speaker: I have received no such request for these Questions to be answered after the usual time. If the Questions are on the Order Paper, as the hon. Member has stated, and they had been reached, that would have enabled the desired Answer to be given, but we spent a long time today on atomic matters and that is why we did not get to those Questions. I have no doubt that the Answers will be circulated in the usual way.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It is within the recollection of the House that the Secretary of State gave a promise, when asked about this matter, that he would answer as soon as possible and as soon as a decision had been made. The right hon. Gentleman promised that as soon as a decision was arrived at on, first, whether the officers implicated in this matter would be suspended, and, secondly, whether there should be a prosecution, a statement would be made. We understand that those decisions have been arrived at and confirmed by the Secretary of State. Surely it is the right of the House, therefore, to ask that the Minister should seek permission, which I am sure you will grant, to answer these Questions and to carry out the wishes of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I am bound by the rules as much as anyone else.

Mrs. Castle: Further to that point of order. Are you aware, Mr. Speaker, that on Tuesday this week this information was given to another place? As the original request for this information was initiated in this House, is it not an act of discourtesy to this House and a denigration of its authority, for information to be given in another place without it being vouchsafed to this House so that hon. Members can have the opportunity to ask supplementary questions about it?

Mr. Speaker: Each House works quite independently of the other in these matters. It seems to have been the case that this question was reached earlier in the other place than it was reached here, but I do not see that there is any point of order for me to consider. Hon. Members may feel a sense of grievance about it, but that is not for me. The position as I see it is that if we had reached these Questions the Answers would have been

given today. It is not my fault that they were not reached.

Mr. Gaitskell: I think you will recollect, Mr. Speaker, that this is a matter of considerable importance. Eleven Africans were beaten to death in a British camp. This is surely something which none of us can regard with anything but profound anxiety. I feel quite sure it would not be the desire of the Colonial Secretary or the Under-Secretary to evade Questions on this matter when they have promised that a statement would be made. I should like to appeal to the Under-Secretary, who, presumably, has the Answer. If he will give us the Answer, then we can deal with the situation which, as I say, is a matter of very great importance.

Mr. Speaker: Of course, that sounds very reasonable, but the trouble is that I am bound to observe the rules of order, which say that the only Questions which can be answered after half-past three are those to which I have given my sanction to be asked by Private Notice and those which a Minister has obtained my permission to answer after Questions. This procedure does not fall within either case. I understood from the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) that the information has been given in another place. If there are Questions on the Order Paper dealing with the matter, and they have not been reached, the Answers ill be circulated. There is nothing I can do about it.

Mr. Lewis: Would I not be right, Mr. Speaker, in suggesting that when we debate the Motion for the Whitsun Adjournment my hon. Friends would be entitled to say that the House should not adjourn until we get this information? Am I not right in saying that we could have a long debate on that—as long as hon. Members liked to take part in the discussion? May I confirm that if I were to catch your eye on that occasion I should be in order in raising the matter?

Mr. Speaker: I never give in advance decisions on what is in order. I should like to hear the terms in which the hon. Member desired to intervene on the Motion, which is debatable, but, at first flush, I should say that it would be possible, I have no doubt, for something to be said on the matter.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As this will be the last opportunity that the House will have to hear a statement on this matter for two or three weeks—[HON. MEMBERS: "No"]Well, if the Under-Secretary undertakes to make a statement tomorrow morning —do I understand from the Leader of the House that the statement will be made either by the Colonial Secretary or by the Under-Secretary tomorrow morning?

Mr. Speaker: Is that so? I did not hear that.

The Secretary of Stale for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): As far as I am concerned, we could certainly make a statement tomorrow morning, but it would be equally easy for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to make a statement now. I think that it would be preferable, and in the interests of the present position, if we were to make a formal request from the Ministerial Bench that we should have leave to make a statement in answer to the Questions.

Mr. Speaker: If there is a statement on the matter, apart from an Answer to a Question and I am asked for permission for a statement to be made, I can consider that at the end of Questions, but we are not at the end of Questions yet. I now call on the Leader of the Opposition to ask the Leader of the House a question about business for the week when we return.
Later—

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a statement on the judicial consequences arising from the Hola Camp incident.
The Attorney-General of Kenya has decided that on the evidence available no charge can be framed against identified individuals in respect of identified illegal force used in the incident. In his considered view, such a charge would fail because the prosecution would be unable to discharge the onus of proof of the use of illegal force beyond reasonable doubt.
Disciplinary proceedings are, however, being started against the camp commandant and his second-in-command, and they have been interdicted from duty. These officers had both been posted away from Hola some weeks ago.

Mr. J. Griffiths: May I ask two questions? The first concerns the Attorney-General's decision. Is the Minister satisfied that the Attorney-General had all the information required at his disposal from every quarter before he made up his mind that no prosecution could be made with prospect of success against any of the individuals who are implicated in this deplorable event, particularly having regard to the fact that the coroner cast very serious reflections upon their veracity? Secondly, will he tell the House about the court which will conduct the disciplinary proceedings against those who have been suspended? Will it have the power to dismiss them from the posts in which they are implicated in the killing of 11 men?

Mr. Amery: Let me say in advance that both we and the Government of Kenya were deeply shocked, as was the whole House, by this incident. As far as we are aware, the Attorney-General had all available information at his disposal. The answer to the first part of the question, therefore, is "Yes".
Answering the second part of the question, I want to study exactly what are the powers of the court, but I assume from my knowledge that they would cover the possibility of dismissal, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested.

Mr. Griffiths: I gather that as far as the Under-Secretary and his right hon. hon. Friend are aware, the Attorney-General had all the information before him. Will the Minister call for a full report from the Attorney-General giving all the information which is available to him and the reasons, on the basis of that information, which led him to his decision?

Mr. Amery: I will consider in detail what the right hon. Gentleman has said. The Attorney-General has already reported the reasons which have led him not to institute a prosecution. I will read them again:
In his considered view, such a charge would fail because the prosecution would be unable to discharge the onus of proof of the use of illegal force beyond reasonable doubt.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that at the inquest Mr. Peters, the European officer in charge of the irrigation scheme at Hola, testified that he


personally saw continuous beating of detainees, apparently for refusal to work and not for any disturbance that he could see? Has there been an identity parade of the warders who were carrying out this illegal force? If not, why not? Is any lack of keenness with which the Attorney-General is pursuing this matter due to the fact that, as the Kenya Government are well aware the real responsibility for the use of illegal force lies with their own instructions and policy?

Mr. Amery: I will certainly look into the point which the hon. Lady has made about an identity parade, but I repudiate any suggestion that there has been any lack of keenness on the part of the Attorney-General.

Mr. P. Williams: Is it not a fact that the Kenya Government desire not only to obtain a full disclosure of the truth of this most regrettable incident, but also that anyone who is in any way connected with it should be brought before the most suitable tribunal? It it not also true that the greatest mischief in this matter can be created by those who desire to show. apparently for no known and obvious reasons, that this is a matter of Africans versus Europeans?

Mr. Bottomley: Is it intended that the coroner's report will be printed so that the general public can read it if they wish to do so?

Mr. Amery: The report was given in public and I will certainly consider whether we can make copies of it available.

Mr. J. Johnson: Does not the Minister agree that this is the biggest blot upon our good name in the Colony for many a year? If this had happened in this country, if 11 men had been beaten to death in England, does the Minister honestly believe that the Government would not have taken more action than this?

Mr. Amery: We have been just as deeply shocked by this incident as has any hon. Member on either side of the House, but I am satisfied that the Attorney-General has investigated it with the closest possible attention, and I do not find it within me to challenge his conclusion.

Mr. G. Thomas: While in no way doubting the integrity of the Attorney-General in Kenya, and in no way seeking to underestimate the concern which must be felt by everybody in responsible office in Kenya at this outrageous incident, is it not desirable that not only those responsible for policy but those responsible for the perpetration of the deed, who must be known to those in charge of the camp, should also come under consideration, and ought not the full evidence—all of it—which was available to the Attorney-General be made available to the House and subject to debate?

Mr. Amery: It would be eminently desirable that those who were guilty of the use of illegal force should be brought to book. The Attorney-General's view, however, is that it is not possible to bring a charge because the prosecution would be unable to discharge the onus of proof.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is it not the case that the Attorney-General's difficulty is in being able to discharge the onus of proving that any particular guard or warder used more than justifiable force? If that is so, is it not also clear from the coroner's report that 11 people were murdered by their guards in this camp, the guards acting collectively? Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Attorney-General, in making his investigation, also considered the possibility of a collective charge of conspiracy to murder?

Mr. Amery: I am not an expert in legal matters, but I understand that the position is more difficult than that represented by the hon. Member. Had there been, for example, an attempt to escape from the camp, or had there been any attempted assault on the prison staff by any of the persons involved, the use of force would not have been illegal and, therefore, there would not in those cases have been murder. Therefore, it has to be established, not only that force was used, but that in all cases the force was illegal.

Mr. Silverman: They died.

Mr. Amery: Yes, but had it been used where a man was trying to escape, or where he was assaulting a warder, it would not have been illegal. Therefore, the


prosecution has to establish not only the identity of the person, but the illegality of the use of force in the particular case.

Mr. K. Robinson: As the camp commandant and his deputy claim that they were acting under instructions approved by the Kenya Government, would it not be desirable that the tribunal which hears the disciplinary charges should he wholly independent of the Kenya Government in order that the truth can be arrived at and the responsibility fixed? Is it not a fact that the tribunal has been appointed by the Kenya Government from among their own servants?

Mr. Amery: Yes, and I am fully confident that that tribunal will not only investigate the matter, but will take whatever action is required by the gravity of the circumstances under consideration.

Mr. Gaitskell: The Under-Secretary of State will realise how seriously the House as a whole views this situation. I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman three questions. First, will these disciplinary proceedings take place in public? Secondly, will the hon. Gentleman make available the detailed reasons why the Attorney-General found it impossible to prosecute? Why was he unable to identify in any way whatever the persons responsible for these eleven deaths? Thirdly, will the hon. Gentleman make available to the House not merely one copy of the coroner's report, but will he have the report printed so that all hon. Members may have access to it?

Mr. Amery: I will look into the first and third of the questions asked by the right hon. Gentleman. I cannot give him the answers offhand. As to why the Attorney-General was unable to identify those responsible, I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the coroner's verdiot, in which the coroner expressed himself, having started off the inquest, as being unable to identify which particular persons were concerned.

Mr. Gaitskell: The hon. Gentleman will surely be aware that a coroner's court very frequently fails to identify the murderer in a particular case. That does not prevent the police from conducting their investigations and eventually perhaps bringing the criminal to justice. Why has that not been done in this case?

Further, are disciplinary proceedings contemplated against any persons in addition to the camp commandant and his deputy?

Mr. Amery: I do not know of any other proceedings which are being instituted at present. Police investigations have not, as yet, revealed any further information than that available to the Coroner's court.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The Under-Secretary again says "police investigations have not, as yet". I therefore press my earlier point to the Under-Secretary. The Attorney-General has made up his mind —I am not casting any reflections—very quickly on a matter which has been going on for some months and about which there is deep concern. I presume that the Attorney-General has conveyed his decision to the Governor in the form of a submission in writing. I ask that that be published so that hon. Members can read it and arrive at their own conclusions as to the reasons why the Attorney-General arrived at his decision.

Mr. Amery: I do not think that the Attorney-General has been unduly slow in making up his mind. Indeed, we were pressed by hon. Members in other parts of the House to produce the answer some time ago. I will look into the right hon. Gentleman's request. I cannot give him an answer offhand.

Mr. Page: Is this not rather an unsatisfactory way in which to leave this matter, which is of great anxiety to both sides of the House? Am I correct in understanding that the decision depends entirely on the Attorney-General of the Colony, on one legal opinion? Is it not constitutionally possible to have it considered by further legal opinion? In that case, would it not be very unsatisfactory for the moment to disclose the reasons leading the Attorney-General to reach his conclusion?

Mr. Amery: I must make it clear that the Attorney-General is acting, not in a governmental, but in a quasi-judicial role. Therefore, it is not for us, and it would be quite unconstitutional for us, to require him to do this, that or the other. He is exercising a quasi-judicial function which cannot be added to or taken away from him by others.

Mr. Grimond: Are the Government prepared to leave this matter in this way, that 11 people are killed in a prison in Kenya and that no criminal charge is brought against anyone? As I understand it, their argument against bringing a criminal charge based on conspiracy is that the prisoners may have been attempting to escape. Has this ever been suggested before?

Mr. Amery: I tried to explain to the House—perhaps the hon. Member misunderstood me—that two points have to be established: first, the identity of the person administering the force; and, secondly, that the force used was illegal. Two issues have to be settled. In the Attorney-General's view, it is not possible to establish that the force used was illegal in each individual case.

Mr. John Hobson: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the rule which, I understand, applies in England will be applied to the Attorney-General of Kenya, namely, that the information upon which he acts and the basis of his decision shall not become a matter of political decision because he is making a quasi-judicial decision?

Mr. Amery: As I tried to explain a moment ago, the Attorney-General was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity and it is not for Her Majesty's Government or the Government of Kenya to try to influence that decision.

Mr. E. Fletcher: Are we to understand from what the Under-Secretary has just said that it is possible to identify some of the warders who inflicted this force and that the only question is whether they were acting legally or illegally?

Mr. Amery: Nothing that I said was intended to convey that.

Mr. S. Silverman: That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Gaitskell: I am not criticising the hon. Gentleman for this, but he has not been able to answer a number of questions asked by hon. Members this afternoon. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we, for our part, do not intend to leave this matter alone until we are satisfied that everything possible has been done to find the truth and bring those responsible to book? Will the Under-

Secretary reflect on the whole situation, the questions asked, such answers as he has been able to give, and make a full statement on the position, answering the questions put, immediately after the Whitsun Recess?

Mr. Amery: I would not quarrel with anything that the right hon. Gentleman said. I will certainly consider whether it is possible to make a fuller statement, although I think that it will be very difficult for the Government to add to the view expressed by the Attorney-General in his quasi-judicial capacity?

Mr. Gaitskell: There are many questions which the hon. Gentleman has not answered, particularly relating to the nature of the disciplinary proceedings and the reasons for the Attorney-General's decision not to prosecute. Those are matters of great importance to us and I must warn the hon. Gentleman that we shall return to this matter. I very much hope that he will be able to satisfy the House that the Government are doing what they can by making a statement of the kind I have indicated.

Mr. Amery: I have already told the House that I will look into questions about the disciplinary proceedings which I was not able to answer this afternoon.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: We cannot carry the matter further now.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: I now ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he will state the business for the week after the Whitsun Recess?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for the first week after the Whitsun Recess will be as follows:
TUESDAY, 2ND JUNE—Second Reading of the Pensions (Increase) Bill and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
WEDNESDAY, 3RD JUNE—Supply [15thAllotted Day]: Committee, which it is proposed to take formally.
A debate will then take place on a Motion to take note of the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland for 1958. (Cmnd. 706.)
THURSDAY, 4TH JUNE—Second Reading of the Cotton Industry Bill and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
FRIDAY, 5TH JUNE—Consideration Of Private Members' Motions.
As the House is aware, Her Majesty the Queen has graciously consented to perform the opening ceremony of the Atlantic Congress in Westminster Hall on Friday, 5th June, beginning at 10.25 a.m.
In view of this ceremony it is thought, after consultation through the usual channels, that it would best meet the convenience of hon. Members for the House to assemble at 12 noon on that day and to sit until 5 or 5.30 p.m.
I shall, in due course, move the necessary Motion relating to the changed hours of sitting, and I hope that these arrangements will be agreeable to the House.

Mr. C. Pannell: In view of the fact that the General Election has now been delayed, can the Leader of the House tell us whether, before the election, we can have a debate on the Report of the Select Committee on Procedure?

Mr. Butler: I do not accept the first part of the hon. Member's observation. A General Election will come at a normal constitutional time.
In reply to the second part of his question, I cannot give any undertaking about time, but I do not want to underestimate the importance of the subject.

Sir A. Baldwin: Now that the decks have been cleared of much important legislation, will my right hon. Friend find time in the near future for a debate on the Report of the Royal Commission on Common Lands, which was published eleven months ago? In view of the fact that we are losing thousands of acres every year for building and other purposes, is it not necessary to see that some of this useful land is brought into production?

Mr. Butler: As is well known, the Government are so full of strength and power that we have a very long legisla-

tive programme to conclude. I cannot guarantee that there will be time to discuss this Report. I do not doubt that the Opposition, in looking at the opportunities which they have on Supply, will choose this first-class subject for one of their Supply days.

Mr. Strauss: Can the Leader of the House tell us when we are likely to debate the Bowes Report on the future of our canals?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give any undertaking about that subject, although I realise its importance.

Mr. du Cann: May I support the request which has been made for time to be given to a debate on the Report of the Select Committee on Procedure? May I make two further points about this: first, that opportunity should be given to have as wide a debate as possible; and, secondly, that sufficient time should be allowed for the private soldier of the debate, namely, the back bench Member, to take part in it?

Mr. Butler: As my hon. Friend has said, what is important is that the debate should be such, if we have an opportunity of holding it, that even wider subjects than those included in the Select Committee's Report would be susceptible of discussion. It is important to obtain the wisdom of hon. Members, whether they be private hon. Members or on the Front Bench, and it all depends on the time. I will note my hon. Friend's request.

Mr. H. Morrison: Will the Leader of the House say what he meant by "a normal constitutional time" for a General Election? Does he mean when the Parliament has lasted for five years under the Parliament Act, or does he mean something else?

Mr. Butler: As the right hon. Gentleman fully perceives, as an ex-Leader of the House, it means at some date before May, 1960.

Mr. Ernest Davies: Further to the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) about the Bowes Report, does the Leader of the House realise that this Report was issued many months ago, since when there has been a White Paper on the Government's proposals in connection


with the Report? The House has had the opportunity of discussing neither the Report nor the Government's proposals. Does he not consider that, out of courtesy to the House, hon. Members should have an opportunity of expressing their views upon it, as some of these proposals have been carried out?

Mr. Butler: I realise that there have been both a White Paper and proposals, but at the moment I cannot give an undertaking about a particular date.

Mr. Chetwynd: In view of the interest shown by the House in the question of strontium 90, and the difficulty of getting a full explanation at Question Time by the Prime Minister, will the right hon. Gentleman consider giving time for a debate on this matter?

Mr. Butler: I think that latterly the Prime Minister has had an opportunity, despite the rush at Question Time, of making his position on this matter clear. I realise the importance attached to it by hon. Members, but at present I cannot give any undertaking about a day for a debate of it.

BILL PRESENTED

CHEVENING ESTATE

Bill to confirm and give effect to a vesting deed and trust instrument relating to the Chevening Estate and other property, and for purposes connected therewith, presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. R. A. Butler, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Simon; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 108.]

ADJOURNMENT (WHITSUNTIDE)

House, at its rising Tomorrow, to adjourn till Tuesday, 2nd June.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

SUPPLY

[14TH ALLOTTED DAY]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS. 1959–60

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed.

That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair. —[Mr. Heath.]

DEVELOPMENT AREAS (POLICY)

4.3 p.m.

The Rev. Llywelyn Williams: I beg to move to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House calls upon the Government to use far more vigorously the powers under the Distribution of Industry Acts to bring new industry and employment to the Development Areas; to restrain excessive development in congested areas; and to schedule additional districts as Development Areas where high unemployment exists.
I do not apologise for returning in our debates to this question of the Development Areas and to the working of the Distribution of Industry Acts in the areas. The reason is very simple. On this side of the House we derive the larger part of our political strength from the Development Areas and we have by far the larger representation of those areas on our side of the House. With the very best will in the world—and I am not withholding from any hon. Member on the Conservative benches the maximum good will in these affairs—hon. Members opposite, in the very nature of things, cannot be as intimately connected with or as concerned in the problems of the Development Areas as we are.
Perhaps the House will allow me very briefly to recapitulate the background story. I do not think that it would be too great an exaggeration to say that in the 1930s we almost reached that most deplorable of all conditions, two nations living in the same land, the employed and the unemployed. The unemployment figures in some areas were almost too fantastic to believe. In one area in my constituency, in 1922, the unemployment figure was over 92 per cent.
Whatever else the war did or did not do, at least it welded us together once


again as one nation. Towards the latter part of the war, everything was pointing to a new orientation in the thinking of politicians on both sides of the House and in both parties. In 1939, the Report of the very important Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population was published. Its chairman was Sir Montague Barlow, and today the Report is known as the Barlow Report.
That Report graphically drew the attention of the minds of thinking people to the complete unbalance in the industrial distribution of our land. It referred to the undesirability of these crazy conurbations, these absurd concentrations of industry in one or two areas, particularly in the Greater London and the Midlands areas. Not a single sociologist since then has to my knowledge ever disputed the thesis on which that Report was based. All of us surely agree by this time that it is completely unnatural for us to have these concentrations in a civilised society.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) has described the chaotic conditions which prevail today in the way of housing and traffic communications in these large congested areas. The traffic problem in London is nightmarish, and what traffic conditions in these great concentrated industrial centres will be like in twenty years' time does not bear thinking about.
As a result, possibly, of that Report and the remembrance of what took place in the 1930s, in 1944 the Coalition Government produced a White Paper on Employment Policy. The major recommendations of that White Paper were incorporated in the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945. The great architect of that Act was, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton).
I doubt whether any Act of Parliament has done more to make the lives of the ordinary people happier. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North said that directly or indirectly about half a million jobs were created, which would not otherwise have existed, as result of our general distribution of industry policy. The total of that in terms of human happiness is incalculable. Communities which were practically dead were rehabilitated in a few years. Today, many of those communities are communities in which we take great pride.
It fell to the lot of the Labour Government to begin the work of implementing the very strong powers which were vested in that Act. It is my firm conviction that the Labour Government at that time proved tremendously successful in implementing the main proposals of that Act. The results were gratifying to all concerned. The comparison of the Conservative Administration during the last seven years with the record of the Labour Administration is one which causes us very great concern.
I want to quote some figures, and, remembering our last debate on this subject, I can promise hon. Members on the Conservative Benches that I will not be selective in my choosing of statistics to prove my case. I shall give the total record which is available to all those who desire to look for it.
During the seven years 1945–51, 30 per cent. of all factory floor space for which approval was secured was in the Development Areas. The corresponding figure for the seven years 1952–58 is only 18½ per cent. I will next give the year-by-year percentages of factory building approvals in the Development Areas. I ask the House to bear in mind that, in the earlier post-war years, we had in the Development Areas about 15 per cent. of the industrial population of the country. Today, because of the additions to the scheduled Development Areas, we have between 18 and 20 per cent.
In 1945, the percentage of factory building approvals in the Development Areas was 62 per cent.; in 1946, 43 per cent.; in 1947, 53 per cent.; in 1948, 46 per cent.; in 1949, 15 per cent.; in 1950, 18 per cent.; and in 1951, 25 per cent. Those are the figures for the period under the Labour Administration.
During the period under the Conservative Administration, the percentages were:in 1952, 22 per cent.; in 1953, 18 per cent.; in 1954, 18 per cent.; in 1955, 16 per cent.; in 1956, 19 per cent.; in 1957, 22 per cent.; and in 1958, 18 per cent. Admittedly, there are two years under the Labour Administration which are not particularly good years, but the total record of the Labour Administration is very much better than the record of the Conservative Administration.
In the period from July, 1945, until September, 1951, 12½ per cent. of all


approvals for factory floor space were in London and the South-East. Between September, 1951, and December, 1958, the figure had risen to 18½ per cent. This is the Distribution of Industry Act working in reverse. In contrast, the Welsh share in the same period fell by nearly a half, from 9 per cent. to just over 4½ per cent. The Northern share declined from nearly 10 per cent. to just over 6 per cent. The Scottish share declined from just under 10 per cent. to just under 7 per cent.
With the greatest respect to the Minister of Labour, who, when we last debated this subject, gave us what I very sincerely regard as one of the most masterly Parliamentary performances I have witnessed in the House, this record is a defiant contradiction of the purpose of the Distribution of Industry Act. It cannot be explained away, as he sought to do, by reference to the need for factory space to be given to the various service industries now catering for London's insatiable maw, nor by reference to that wonderful alibi word, "extension", a word often quoted by Conservative apologists in debates about the distribution of industry. The £60 million project of Colvilles steel company in Scotland, largely set up by Government finance, is euphemistically called "extension". I hasten to assure my Scottish friends that I do not oppose that particular "extension" in the context of present-day circumstances in Scotland.
The great achievements that were being attained in the Development Areas have been retarded more than necessary by the elastic interpretation which the Board of Trade has given to the word "extension". Out of its own mouth, it stands condemned in this respect. In the Economic Survey of 1959 the Board of Trade says that in future it will have a more stringent application. If it is to be more stringent, it must have been less stringent in the past. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, in our last debate, said that his Department was now examining more critically applications from the Home Counties and the more congested industrial centres. If he admits that it is intended to be much more critical, there must be the inevitable implication that the Department has been less critical than it intends to be in the future. It is because it has been less critical in the past that we have the disparity

is factory building as between the Home Counties and the Development Areas.
We declare that the intentions behind the Distribution of Industry Act will not be realised until the long-standing disparity between the unemployment figures for the Development Areas and the unemployment figures for the country as a whole has disappeared, until, indeed, there are no more stubborn pockets of unemployment left in this battle for social and economic justice. Even in 1932, the worst year ever for unemployment, whereas the unemployment figure for the whole country was 19 per cent., in the areas the nomenclature of which has changed from derelict areas to depressed areas to distressed areas to special areas and, now, to Development Areas, the unemployment percentage was exactly double, namely, 38 per cent.
We still have this accursed disparity today. In April, the unemployment percentages in the Development Areas were as follows: West Cumberland, 6.2 per cent.; Scottish Development Areas, 5.3 per cent.: Merseyside, 4.6 per cent.: South Wales, 4.5 per cent.; the North-East, 3.5 per cent.; Wrexham, 3.8 per cent.: South Lancashire, 3.8 per cent.; and North-East Lancashire, 3.2 per cent. In the non-Development Areas, such as London and the South-East, we have the low figure of 1.5 per cent. In the North Midlands, it is 1.7 per cent. In the Midlands area, it is 1.9 per cent. The percentage for all Development Areas is 4.5 and the percentage for Great Britain is 2.4.
We on this side cannot accept that the Government have succeeded in steering industrial development away from congested areas into the Development Areas. They certainly have not succeeded in solving the problem of the high incidence of unemployment in the Development Areas. Furthermore, long-term unemployment among men is slightly higher in the Development Areas than it is in Great Britain as a whole. It is especially severe in the Wrexham area, where 53 per cent. of all men aged 18 and over who are unemployed have been out of work for over six months. The figure for the South Lancashire area is 36 per cent.
My Amendment
calls upon the Government to use far more vigorously the powers under the Distribution of Industry Acts to bring new industry and employment to the Development Areas.


It would be well for us to remind ourselves once again of those powers. I recently read the Second Reading debate on the 1945 Act. A number of Labour back bench Members said in the debate on the Second Reading of that Measure that it should have assumed even greater powers, even power to direct industry. However, the debate took place during wartime, when direction was accepted as right and proper in the midst of the exigencies of a war for survival.
The Labour Party in office and in opposition has never asked for powers to direct industry. We believe that the great task involved in the implementation of the Act could be done by persuasion, by incentives of various sorts and, as a result of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, by the negative control of either issuing or refusing to issue industrial development certificates to industrialists who wished to erect new factories or to extend existing factories of more than 5,000 square feet.
Let us see how the Conservative record stands up to the provisions of the Act. Section 1 gives power to the Board of Trade to build in Development Areas factories and ancillary buildings, to acquire land, either compulsorily or by agreement, and to prepare sites on which industrial establishments can be erected —in other words, to build more and better modern factories with a better balance between light and heavy industries. Will the Government tell us whether their record is good enough in view of the consistently high rates of unemployment in the Development Areas during the last three years?
I know that there are signs of improvement. No one welcomes that more sincerely than I do. As one who knows the area well, I can assure the Government that the Pressed Steel factory, in the Swansea area, the Crawley Mining Machinery factory, in my home town, Llanelly, and the other factories in Ammanford, Pontardulais, and Gorseinon will be a godsend to those hard-hit areas. But so much more needs to be done if South Wales is to be anything like what the architect of this great Act, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, intended the South Wales Development Area and other Development Areas to be. Much more needs to

be done before we who represent these areas are satisfied that they are in a condition which we should like.
South Wales is not as prosperous as the Lord Chancellor, when addressing the annual meeting of the Welsh Conservative Council the other day, and the President of the Board of Trade, writing in the Western Mail Industrial Supplement, recently suggested.
Let us consider some of the eastern parts of South Wales, particularly the mining townships in the upper reaches of the Rhondda, Llyfni, Sirhowy, Rhymney and Western Valleys. In recent months in some of these areas there has been a welcome, but not very appreciable, fall in unemployment, but there has been little intake into the manufacturing industries. Activity appears to have increased mainly in building and civil engineering and other outdoor work. We still have a hard core of disabled workers. Since the end of the war never has the problem of school-leavers without jobs assumed such serious proportions. We are very apprehensive about the future, when the so-called "bulge" will take on a most formidable aspect.
Between 9th February and 9th March this year the unemployment figures for Wales decreased by 1,356. from 45,209 to 43,853. I believe that they decreased further in the succeeding month. In the South Wales Development Area, however, the unemployment figures for that same period did not decrease, but increased by 198. We who represent these areas are becoming very perturbed about the situation. No one seriously disputes that our people have the skill and adaptability. Why waste this skill and energy? Why cannot they be utilised? Why cannot we use this productive capacity? It would be much better than paying unemployment benefit to men who are becoming embittered and more despondent week after week.
The parent Act empowers the Board of Trade, with the consent of the Treasury, to make loans to non-profit making trading and industrial estate companies. We have some very fine trading estates in South Wales, such as Bridgend, Fforest-fach, Hirwaun and, the showpiece of them all, Treforest. A case can now be made out for another in North Monmouthshire. We have been promised a Tops of the


Valleys road from the Midlands to Swansea. In view of that, a trading estate would be a tremendous boon in North Monmouthshire, which consists of Tredegar, Rhymney, Ebbw Vale, Brynmawr, Blaina, Nant-y-Glo, Abertillery, Newbridge and Blackwood.
Why cannot Section 3 of the Act be implemented? Under this Section the Minister is granted power to make special grants on loans, with Treasury consent, towards the cost of improving basic services, such as water supply, sewerage schemes, roads, heating and transport facilities, without imposing extra charges on local rates. The notorious Circular No. 54/52 put a stop to many schemes which were being propounded in the Development Areas. By 1954, 51 schemes, costing £12 million, had been turned down. all in the sacred name of economy.
When Conservatives start thinking of economy measures, unemployment figures immediately begin to rise. When they think of restrictions and recessions they do not use those words. They call them, euphemistically, adjustments. The Government have made too many adjustments in the working of the Distribution of Industry Acts in the last few years. We want more implementation.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) succinctly put it in a debate, the Distribution of Industry Act proclaims social reconstruction as well as industrial reconstruction. We want the basic services to match up to the average basic services of the nation. And why not? Those of us who live in Development Areas know how pathetically we lag behind other areas in this perfectly justifiable endeavour. Our local authorities, so poverty-stricken before the war, started the post-war programme far behind more fortunate places outside the Development Areas. The record of the Government in this matter is a poor one. Even now they have yielded only to the extent of allowing some water and sewerage schemes in parts of the Development Areas; and there must be an exceptional reason even for these schemes before they can be implemented.
The Government have failed miserably to carry out the provisions in Section 5 of the Act, dealing with derelict land in Development Areas. The Board of Trade has the power to acquire such land compulsorily, or by agreement, to provide

industrial sites and open spaces. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government issued a helpful and valuable circular some years ago called, Reclamation of Derelict Land ". I am not sure whether the Board of Trade has heard about it yet. But it is a very good pamphlet, which I recommend officials at the Board of Trade to read.
We have certainly paid a high price in our Development Areas as a result of the spoilation and desecration that has followed the unbridled industrialisation of the past. No wonder a novel I read recently, which dealt with the industrialisation of Northern Monmouthshire in the last century, bore the title "The Rape of the Fair Country ". About 4,000 acres in Monmouthshire alone are derelict land in the form of coal tips, slag heaps and industrial waste of all kinds. With all the powers that there are in the Act, and with unemployed labour available, could not the Government do more—they certainly could not have done less—to level these tips and slag heaps and so provide industrial sites, open spaces and playing fields? We have little cause to thank this Government for playing fields in the valleys of South Wales. What playing fields we have had during these last years we owe to C.I.S.W.0.—the Coal Industry and Social Welfare Organisation.
How can we hope to attract new industries? How can we expect industrialists, Who are seeking new areas in which to expand, to look favourably on these excrescences, these hideous memorials to man's greed and stupidity in the past? I speak feelingly. Where I live, every living-room of our house faces an ugly colliery tip. Nature has been very beneficent and has mollified some of the harshness by allowing the growth of shrubs and trees to occur in patches.
But why could not these eyesores be levelled by the exercise of the powers contained in the Act, so that youngsters, like my own rugby-crazy lad, could have playing fields of their own instead of, as now happens, being chased regularly from the Newbridge Rugby Club pitch by a very irate caretaker-groundsman? It is the only available pitch.
We must have sites available for new factories. We must have the amenities which key workers and technicians coming in from other areas are accustomed to, and demand in the places


where they and their families are to live. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North that there should be a much bolder willingness on the part of the Government to add to the existing scheduled areas.
The power is there in Section 6 of the Act. It has been done. In 1946, Wrexham and South Lancashire were added to the list. In 1949, Merseyside and part of the Scottish Highlands were added. In 1953, North-East Lancashire was added. What has happened since then in areas such as North-West Wales, Anglesey and Caernarvon, and other areas in England and Scotland, where there have been persistently high unemployment figures and no immediate prospect of respite or improvement?
It is true that no area has been removed from the Schedule. So far as I know, there is no inclination on the part of hon. Members on either side of the House to do so. But I am not too sure that a case cannot be made out for removing a town like Newport, with its huge strip mill project, from the South Wales Development Area; or Port Talbot, or possibly Neath. I cannot see why these three successful industrial towns should not be removed from the schedule of Development Areas. Other hon. Members will advocate the claims of their areas in their constituencies to be included in the schedule.
Why do we speak like this? Why do we speak with such concern about the Development Areas? Are there any electoral reasons? Believe me, those are the least of our worries in South Wales and the other Development Areas. We speak feelingly, not claiming any greater virtue or sagacity than hon. Members opposite, because most of us live in these areas. I have seen some remarkable triumphs of the human spirit in these wonderful communities, triumphs over poverty and hardship, and sometimes over terrible tragedies in the way of pit disasters. The things of the mind are held in great respect in the cotton towns of Lancashire, and in the Highlands of Scotland, and in the mining valleys and townships of South Wales. They are great areas, they are wonderful areas, and we are very concerned about them.
We see the cotton industry languishing and contracting at an alarming rate, and

I can see a very dark question mark poised over many a colliery pit top, and it worries me. It is a very foreboding question mark. During our last debate on the coal industry the Paymaster-General said that there will be no more pit closures this year; that the stocking of coal can be allowed without let or hindrance and that expanding production will deal with the situation. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is right. With all my heart I hope he is right, and that the problem can be dealt with in that way. But if the right hon. Gentleman is wrong, then, obviously, we cannot allow coal to be stocked ad infinitum. Then for how long will it be stocked? Well, the suspicious politician in me whispers —if he is wrong, heaven forgive him—that it will be until after the General Election.
If the Conservative Party wins the next General Election we can then expect the closures, and they will be brutal closures; and they will involve not hundreds, but thousands.

Mr. Paul Williams: Rubbish. Shocking.

The Rev. LI. Williams: If the hon. Member will listen to me—

Mr. William Hamilton: He will be out after the next Election.

The Rev. Ll. Williams: —I would tell him that 60 per cent. of the working population of my constituency are miners. I confess here and now that when I think of those thousands of miners and their families I find it very difficult to steer the true course between the Scylla of alarm and the Charybdis of optimism.
It is very difficult to know what is to happen, but if the storm does break on the valleys of South Wales in the next five, ten or twenty years only one thing will prevent the repetition of that unforgivable story of the 1930s, and that is the implementation now of the Distribution of Industry Act. Clear the sites now, get the trading estates there now, have diversification of employment there now.
It is because I speak with that agony of hope and fear clashing the one against the other that I put my final sentence very pointedly to the Minister. If the Government can convince us that they are


genuinely and vigorously implementing the tremendous powers in the Distribution of Industry Act, I shall say, "All credit to them," but if they cannot do that to our satisfaction, then we must divide the House.

4.42 p.m.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I beg to second the Amendment.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. LI. Williams), who has put so fair and formidable a presentation of our case in terms of such natural eloquence. I am glad to see so many Ministers here, and we shall, I hope, have a considered reply to our arguments.
I am particularly glad to see the Minister of Labour here. There is a point on which I dissent from my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery, and that is on his comment on the last speech which the Minister of Labour made in a debate on unemployment, which naturally concerned the Development Areas. I thought that it did him great discredit. I once heard it said that a demagogue was defined as an orator whose speech you did not like. That may well be the description of the Minister's talent last time.
There are, I suggest, many opponents of the Development Areas. They are not very outspoken, but now and then they do appear; now and then they come to the surface. It is worth while checking up one or two of them in a debate like this just to show that, in fact, they do still linger on. One, I am sad 10 say, is found in the editorial rooms of the Manchester Guardian.
Some time ago that paper attacked the Government, as it often does—and I applaud it for doing so, but on this occasion it attacked them on the wrong snore—deploring the Government's decision not to allow an industrial development certificate to British Nylon Spinners for a factory at Havant, near Portsmouth. This was surely one of the very few outstanding occasions when this Government did something helpful under the Distribution of Industry Act. It caused so much trouble that we had criticisms in the big Tory newspapers as well as in the Manchester Guardian. That Liberal newspaper deplored the decision as interfering with the natural evolution

of commerce. It was thus falling back on the old laissez faire attitude to the capitalist system, and thus found that decision quite wrong.
In our last debate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) let loose the following thoughts, which are reminiscent of the Manchester Guardian in following out this line. He said:
‥I believe that we can too readily accept the need for unlimited aid for these areas rather than say that if we cannot run industries efficiently in those areas people must move to areas where those industries can be run efficiently."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 479.]
The hon. Gentleman was speaking about the Development Areas, and the argument there was the one we well know, that we should have a natural flow of industry and of labour, with labour moving about and finding its houses where it can and going to industry, rather than we should bring work to the workers.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Cheadle ought not to be classed as an opponent of the Development Areas; perhaps he ought to be classed as a reluctant supporter. He certainly ought not to be blamed for his attitude because he was only reflecting that of the present Government, particularly in 1956.
In 1956, the Government virtually murdered the Distribution of Industry Act. It was then that they started this process of slackness and loss of vigour, as it has been emphasised by my hon. Friend for Abertillery, in the issuing of I.D.C. certificates, curtailing money for Government-sponsored factories, and so on. All that happened to such an extent that even Lord Bilsland, who is well known in Scotland as being "non political"—which usually means Conservative in these matters, although I will for the present exempt him from that condemnation —and who is head of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), and who has advised both Governments in this connection, said in a debate in another place that this was the end of the effectiveness of the Development Areas programme.
I come now to the speech on 18th March of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. I wondered whether he was misreading his figures, or whether, perhaps, HANSARD recorded them wrongly, but it was really a quite astonishing use


of the figures to reflect on the nature of the Government's own endeavours compared with the Labour Government's endeavours. The comparison is on the basis of the hon. Gentleman's own figures, as given in his statement in that debate. He said that the Labour Government provided £37 million to finance Government factories in 1945 to 1948 and that the average was £4 6 million thereafter in each of the years 1949, 1950 and 1951. I make the total £50 8 million as having been spent, estimated on the hon. Gentleman's own figures, on Government-financed factories.
Yet the hon. Gentleman, in the next sentence, confessed that the average spent under the Conservatives has been £4 million per year for seven years, which is, of course, only £28 million, a very poor performance. These are his own figures. I am choosing the Minister's own figures. I am not adopting a sample we could get from the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is always suspect in housing debates. I am choosing the figures of the Parliamentary Secretary, his own figures, which show that the Conservatives have done half as much in this respect as did the Labour Government in their difficult days of office.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Surely the Conservatives have not done even half as well. Has my hon. Friend considered the effect of the depreciation of the value of the £?

Dr. Dickson Mabon: My hon. Friend is not being fair to me. He has anticipated most of my speech.
If we take the Parliamentary Secretary's figures, they mean that just over £7 million a year was spent by the Labour Government. The Parliamentary Secretary, in his next breath in that speech, said that the proposed expenditure in 1959 would be £6.9 million. So if we discount what my hon. Friend has suggested, the fall in the value of money and the rise in the prices of building materials and labour for the construction of these factories, we have after this long interval, and on the Minister's own figures, this difference.
I think that this is wholly inadequate repentance, and I hope that if the Minister of Labour is willing to stay on a little longer to hear my speech I will perform

a service for him, a service which he failed to do in his last speech, and I will try to complete the picture for him, if he will forgive my impertinence. However, I want to touch on one or two small matters before I do that, lest he may think that I am doing him an injustice.
My hon. Friend has drawn a comparison, in terms of an argument based on square footage, of what was done by the Labour Party and the Conservative Party over the last sixteen years or so. There is one further matter which is worthy of consideration. Although, in theory, many of the areas have not been descheduled, in practice they have been. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said in his very admirable report on unemployment, which received such scathing comments from the Parliamentary Secretary and dubious praise from the Minister of Labour, this was administrative descheduling.
I am not grinding my own constituency axe, because Greenock is one of the areas which has not been descheduled in this way. But how ludicrous it is that while as a D. A. T. A. C. area, mentioned so often in Board of Trade announcements, it is receiving the maximum promise of assistance from the present Government, I can look across the Clyde to Dunbartonshire, which has a high rate of unemployment and which does not enjoy the kind of promises offered to my constituency by the Government.
A great many of the workers in Greenock travel to Dunbartonshire to work. It is not unnatural that in a great area like the Clyde Valley people find their jobs in widely separated localities. It is ridiculous, in that case, that within that wide area there should be areas which have greater priority than others in the matter of bringing in jobs. The Government have created an Orwellian situation in these areas. They have made some towns and districts more equal than others. Greenock, North Lanark and Dundee, and even North Ayrshire, are on this priority list. Mind you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, your constituency and mine have received the same assistance from the Government. In essence they have virtually received precious little but promises. While, in North Ayrshire, there has been a promise of D. A. T. A. C. assistance, there is no similar application of


assistance to Central Ayrshire, where the unemployment percentage is high.
Why is it that D. A. T. A. C. works in this way? Diagnosis is made on a basis of persistently high unemployment. In medical terms one would say that the diagnosis is based on persistent chronic symptoms of a high unemployment rate and then treatment by D. A. T. A. C. is applied. But while the D. A. T. A. C. treatment is rarely curative it is certainly never preventative. There is no intelligent anticipation by the Government of areas of high unemployment. Why should areas suddenly receive maximum publicity and Government attention after the event has occurred? Why not make an intelligent assay of what is likely to happen and find out what industries are contracting and whether work can be brought in before the unemployment rates rise so substantially?
In Scotland, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) discovered recently, 4,000 people have been discharged from Ministry of Supply jobs during the last year. I remember that in 1957, in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Scotland and in my constituency, 800 Royal Ordnance factory workers were dismissed in a period of two months. No wonder that unemployment rates have gone up in these years and have remained so high. Why did not the Government anticipate all this? Surely they must have known what was going on in their own Ministry of Supply factories and what steps were to be taken to sack these men. Could they not have taken steps to bring factories into the areas in time to take up this unemployment?
This argument applies on a far larger scale than that concerned with Government Departments. Where are the jobs to come from in the coalfields of Wales, Durham and Scotland where the mining industry is now contracting? If we take the thesis expounded by the Manchester Guardian, supported by the hon. Member for Cheadle, with the secret connivance of the Government, it appears that the party opposite wants industry to find its own natural place and not be induced to go to certain areas, and if industries die then the towns and the communities must die with them. If that is not the case, the Government should be intelligently anticipating the contracting of the

coal mining industry, of cotton in Lancashire, of shale oil production in the Lothians, and of the jute industry in Dundee and of the small fishing communities in the north-east of Scotland, in Fifeshire and elsewhere.
Has the Parliamentary Secretary ever read the excellent Cairncross Report on Scotland? It is admittedly full of high praise for the Labour Government which the right hon. Gentleman would not like. It was published in 1952. It contains many excellent recommendations which have not been implemented and which the Minister might wall consider, particularly in relation to the small fishing ports where many men are losing their jobs.
If I may, I should like to score up the speech of the Minister of Labour for him. He will recall that he said that the Leader of the Opposition on one occasion had offered him a five-point economic plan and that he had scored for himself four-and-a-half points. He promised in his last speech to score his pointage on the Jay report. He did not do so. I should like to do the scoring for the right hon. Gentleman. Is the ban on building after 31st October to continue? Are projects which cannot be completed by 31st October to be banned by the Government? As far as we know, they are, and no contrary announcement has been made so far. Therefore, on the right hon. Gentleman's political bridge card the score should be none for that.
On the right hon. Gentleman's own argument, the Government are putting forward three and the Opposition are putting forward six proposals for advance factories. But the Opposition does not say that —they add the word "elsewhere". It must surely be obvious that if the Opposition had the levers of power, of government and of information which Ministers possess, it would be in a position to put forward a larger number of proposals for advance factories. But granting the Minister's argument for the moment that we offer six and he offers three, his score is one-half point.
On the question of industrial development certificates, if we can accept the right hon. Gentleman's dialectical dissertation as to when a factory is not a factory and when an extension is not an extension, we might give him a quarter of a point. The Government have done very little in the matter of Section 3


grants to local authorities. If we bear in mind the various considerations which apply to Scottish local authorities, I think that we can fairly give the right hon. Gentleman no points on that score.
There is a great deal to be done in the provision of roads, in filling the Monckton Canal, in Coatbridge—an ideal example of this type of work--and on derelict sites. There is a problem in my own constituency. The local authority has shown five Ministers, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North, different sites in Greenock. We know where the larger and smaller factories should be established. The question is who acquires the sites. Is it the local authority? Must the town council fork out £20,000 and more to buy sites, or are the Government willing to buy the sites and ask the local authority to provide some of the amenities? This matter has not been made clear as an act of policy, and on this score the right hon. Gentleman is awarded no points.
We had a concession on Board of Trade rents in February on which we might give the right hon. Gentleman a quarter of a point, though these rents may well be a disincentive to those contemplating coming to these areas. On the opening of Board of Trade offices he gets no points; Government contracts, a quarter of a point; phased development, no points; new scheduled areas, no points; D. A. T. A. C. loans to local authorities, no points; the question of Northern Ireland, a quarter point—total score out of 12 points, one and a half points.
I do not think that the Minister of Labour can argue that that comes anywhere near meeting the requirements of what is called the Jay report. The Parliamentary Secretary called it a thing of shreds and patches, or, at any rate, he used an abusive phrase. It would be much better if that report could be looked at again and the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary took a lesson from the Opposition Front Bench on how to run the distribution of industries and how Development Areas should be expanded.
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery made such an excellent speech, and I am very delighted that I am able to support it. I hope that tonight hon. Members who represent other areas will be able, in graphic terms,

to explain their own position and show that the Government can do a lot to anticipate the contraction of industry and the need for new jobs. I believe that that kind of flexible approach is the only kind for the mid-twentieth century when we no longer have to argue about large-scale unemployment of 20 per cent. or 40 per cent. being inevitable. We are, however, much concerned with this marginal unemployment, and I hope that the Minister will reply reasonably tonight.

ROYAL ASSENT

5.0 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. House Purchase and Housing Act. 1959.
2. Housing (Underground Rooms) Act, 1959.
3. Small Lotteries and Gaming Act, 1956 (Amendment) Act, 1959.
4. Rating and Valuation Act, 1959.
5. Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act, 1959.
6. Police Federation Act, 1959.
7. Supreme Court of Judicature (Amendment) Act, 1959.
8. Deer (Scotland) Act, 1959.
9. Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene and other Charities (Newcastle upon Tyne) Charity Scheme Confirmation Act, 1959.
10. Hospital of St. Nicholas (Salisbury) Charity Scheme Confirmation Act, 1959.
11. Jesus Hospital (Rothwell) Charity Scheme Confirmation Act, 1959.
12 Poor's Coal Charity (Wavendon) Charity Scheme Confirmation Act, 1959.
13. Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (West Hertfordshire Main Drainage) Act, 1959.
14. Calvinistic Methodist or Presbyterian Church of Wales (Amendment) Act, 1959.

SUPPLY

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1959-60

Question again proposed, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question.

DEVELOPMENT AREAS (POLICY)

5.15 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Rodgers): I am sure that all Members of the House are grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. LI. Williams) for using his good luck in the Ballot for Motions to introduce the subject of the Development Areas. I believe that, important though general debates are on the subject of unemployment, perhaps in the next few months—it may even be years—the question of local unemployment will assume more importance than the general overall employment debates, and therefore we owe him a debt of gratitude for allowing us to ventilate it today.
At the same time, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman most sincerely on the eloquent, moving and sincere way in which he moved his Amendment. If I may say so without patronage, I found it extremely helpful and objective in its outlook. His suggestion that the time had come when one or two areas might be do-scheduled was interesting coming from the opposite side of the House. It is one we ourselves have often considered but so far have rejected, but it has by no means been neglected and it would be interesting in the course of today's debate to hear the views of others on whether the time has come when we might help areas as much by de-scheduling as we hope to help them when they are scheduled. Conversely, by the same argument, if by de-scheduling we help other areas, the hon. Gentleman stands convicted out of his own mouth in that his demand for more and more areas to be scheduled will not help those already scheduled. I will not debate this at great length, but it could be argued either way.
I hope I shall not raise the temperature of the House, or be accused of introducing party politics, if I say that the hon. Gentleman's historical survey of the steps taken by various Governments to deal with the question of local unemployment was perhaps a little less than fair to the part played by the Conservative Administration in the location of industry policy and in the creation of Development Areas. What are the facts? The policy was initiated before the war by the National Government, which was predominantly Conservative, with the passing of three Acts specially to deal with the problem of the distressed areas, as they were then called. These were the Special Areas (Development and Improvement) Act. 1934, the Special Areas Reconstruction Act, 1936, and the Special Areas (Amendment) Act, 1937. In addition to the establishment of trading estates under these Acts, the revival of heavy industries in the distressed areas was assisted by the placing of contracts by the Service Departments between 1936 and 1939.
As the hon. Gentleman himself said, as a result of the policies which Conservative Governments initiated in those years, the number of unemployed in the special areas halved between 1931 and the outbreak of the war in 1939. A landmark, as he said, was reached with the publication of the White Paper issued by the Coalition Government in 1944. Not only did that White Paper signpost the way, we hoped, to full employment and the prevention of any possibility of a return to the conditions we knew in the 'thirties, but it also endorsed the Conservative policy of providing loans for commercially sound enterprises in what we now call the Development Areas. The Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, was based on that White Paper.
To be fair—I was accused last time we debated this subject of not being quite fair—the Act was introduced by the Coalition Government and some credit should be given to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) for the part he played. But to be equally fair, the right hon. Gentleman might give credit to the Conservative Caretaker Government which actually passed the Bill. All I tried to suggest was that both sides can take some credit for the present position of our location of industry policy and for the policies we


are both trying to pursue. If we have an argument, it is on the question of emphasis and vigour and not on the fundamental policy of the location of industry or the steering of firms.

Mr. Douglas Jay: To get the record straight, the Bill was three-quarters of the way through its Committee stage in this House when the Coalition Government handed over to the Caretaker Government.

Mr. Rodgers: I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much.
By the time we came to 1958 there were many places outside the scheduled Development Areas where there was worse unemployment than in the Development Areas. It was for this reason that the Conservative Government introduced the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958, in order to provide a mechanism for giving help where it was most needed. In other words, the Conservatives introduced in the early days a new conception. I think I ought to be allowed here to claim credit for this. It was not enough for Governments to alleviate the individual hardship which fell to people unemployed. They recognised that the Government had an active part to play in the creation of employment and particularly in trying to locate it in areas where people would otherwise suffer through no fault of their own.
In the last few months the Government have taken a great many steps to reflate the economy and to try to create a general background of further employment which should make the steering of industry more easy than it has been in the past. The experience which I have had since being at the Board of Trade has shown me that at a time when there are fewer industries on the move it is more difficult to steer them to Development Areas. Therefore, it is essential that the location of industry policy should be pursued just as vigorously, if not more vigorously, in times of industrial expansion than in times when unemployment figures are high.
The long-term difficulties of these areas will not be solved except by a policy—whichever Government are in power—of steering industry, and it is much easier when industry is expanding and when

there are parts of firms which can be hived off or whole industries which can be steered into the Development Areas.
I do not think that I can accept what I believe to be the misleading oversimplification of the problem, of the remedies and of the solutions stated in the right hon. Gentleman's pamphlet on unemployment. On page 2 of his report he claims that the Socialists had nearly solved, once and for all, the problem of the special areas by 1951. Socialist policy had nearly put an end to the menace of unemployment in the Development Areas. I think this is really an over-simplification of the problem.
Has the unemployment problem nothing to do with the export position and with the credit worthiness of the country? Had Dundee ceased in 1951 to be largely dependent on jute? Had Tyneside ceased to be dependent on shipbuilding? Had the Welsh valleys ceased to be dependent on the hand tinplate mills? Were there no happenings in agriculture whereby output was going up with a depleted labour force? I think the right hon. Gentleman was being what he accuses us of being, complacent, when he suggested that by 1951 the Labour Government had practically solved, once and for all the problem of unemployment in the Development Areas.

Mr. Jay: I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but since he quotes me, I would point out that obviously the implication of that was if the policy had been vigorously continued.

Mr. Rodgers: We will come to that.
Of course, unemployment was only a fraction of what it had been in the 1930s, but this was true all over the country. It is significant, but it was not in the right hon. Gentleman's report, that unemployment in the Development Areas has remained consistently about double that of the rest of Great Britain, whether the rate of unemployment was high or low.
If I may be critical of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment in so distinguished a way, I thought that he was a little unfair, too, in quoting the figures that he alleged proved our failure to deal with the unemployment situation in the Development Areas. It is true that it is


4·5 per cent. in the Development Areas as against 2·4 in the rest of the country, but it was twice_ as high in all the seven years of the Socialist Government except in 1947. There is really very little difference between us on the record in this field. The more that I visit the Development Areas the more I am sure that it is a very difficult problem. It is futile to try to score debating points by selecting figures. The difference in the ratios of unemployment in the Development Areas as compared with the rest of the country was 2·2 to one under the Socialists while ours is 1·8 to one. So, if anything, we have brought about an improvement in the ratios. I do not want to let go the accusation which the hon. Gentleman made that we had failed in this record.

Mr. George Lawson: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is also the factor of the very rapid growth in some parts of the country and no growth in others? That should be kept in mind. Scotland, for example, has been nearly static in population whereas the population of the Midlands has gone up very much indeed.

Mr. Rodgers: I am very well aware of that point.
I am convinced from my visits up and down the country that one of the reasons for the unemployment in the Development Areas is the technological changes which were bound to happen—and will go on happening—no matter what party was in office. The decline of the extractive industries in Cornwall, the substitution of paper bags for jute sacks, which affects Dundee, the gradual contraction of the cotton industry, particularly in Lancashire and the closing of the South Wales hand tinplate industry and many other changes were inevitable. Indeed, no Government could seek to frustrate these technological changes.
We cannot afford to act as an industrial Canute saying to the technological changes, "Thus far and no further."

Mr. Percy Collick: No one would, of course, dispute what the hon. Gentleman is now saying, but what he seems to fail to understand, as I see it, is that the criticism which comes from this side of the House against the Government's policy is due to the fact that they

have failed in the direction of industry policy at this time in allowing industrial establishments to sprout up all over the country rather than see to it that they are developed in the Development Areas.

Mr. Rodgers: I am coming to that point a little later about the use of the industrial development certificate as a weapon for steering industry.
I would correct one thing which the hon. Gentleman may have said inadvertently in his intervention. He used the word "direct". We have no power to direct industry or to seek to do so, and I do not think that hon. Gentlemen opposite would really want at this time, in what is still a free enterprise system, to see powers given to the Government to direct firms. We must use powers of persuasion and inducement, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned when he moved the Motion.

Mr. Collick: I used the word "direct", but I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands, as I do, that if the Government make up their mind that industry is to go into the Development Areas that is where it will go.

Mr. Rodgers: I am coming to that point as I develop my argument.

Mr. William Ross: No one accuses the hon. Gentleman of being like King Canute. We think that he is more like Ethelred the Unready.

Mr. Rodgers: I am sorry that I gave way to enable the hon. Gentleman to make that unworthy intervention.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: Will the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Rodgers: I am sorry that I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I have been interrupted five times in the last five minutes.
I want to point out that the Development Areas are as much dependent on the export trade of the country and probably even more dependent than is the rest of the country. They would be much more affected than would London, Birmingham and the Midlands if we were priced out of the export markets. I am sure that all of us have been heartened by the April figures. The measures Which we have


taken generally throughout the country, and which are reflected to some extent in the Development Areas, and the policy which we have been pursuing, which has kept prices steady and led to better employment figures, show that we are the guardians and not the assassins of full employment as we were once accused of being by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
Today my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has published figures up to the end of March of the actual number of people in employment as opposed to those unemployed. Some commentators, I see-- and this point may be raised in the course of the debate—have assumed that only 1,000 in the total is a disappointing increase. However, I should like to point out that there is usually a decrease in jobs between February and March. For example, in the same month last year, there was a drop of 19,000, and in 1957 one of 16,000. Indeed, today's employment figures are the first for a year and a half which have shown a positive improvement over the usual change for the time of the year. The improvement in the trend which we noted in the unemployment figures has now been continued in the positive employment figures. Finally, another good indication, the drop of 16,000 in the number on short time brings the total for short time lower than it was in March last year.
Now I should like to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Abertillery in his very effective speech in regard to the powers that we have to try to steer industry. There are two powers, the positive power and the negative power. There is positive power under the Distribution of Industry Acts to build factories, to help firms with grants and loans to secure the necessary capital for building their own factories or in providing equipment. There are also grants to facilitate industrial development by the clearance of derelict sites and the provision of basic services. Secondly, there is the negative power under the Town and Country Planning Act introduced by the right hon. Gentleman's Government in 1947, to refuse industrial development certificates which are required for any industrial building of over 5,000 square feet. I should like to deal with each of these in turn.
To deal with the positive side of our policy first, may I say that it has often been urged from the benches opposite that the Government should spend more money in order to provide more jobs in Development Areas, and we are at one with the party opposite in wanting to create the jobs. It is always possible to think of ways of spending the taxpayers' money which might bring the creation of more new permanent jobs, but one has to bear in mind two limitations.
The first essential is that we have to have some system of priorities designed to help the worst places. If we are prepared to help anywhere which has some unemployment, and even, as the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment suggested, areas where unemployment is threatened though not actual, we shall not be able to concentrate on the worst places. I should like to refer to this matter, to which refernce was made by the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), a little later on.
Secondly, hon. Members will not expect the Government to spend money without regard to the soundness of the particular project in the long run. To load up the Development Areas with bankrupt businesses would do the Development Areas more harm than good. Therefore, we must give some attention to the viability or soundness of the particular concern. The chief power we have to create employment, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, is to build factories, and we are using those powers in those places where unemployment is most serious. We believe these places are Dundee, Greenock North Lanarkshire, West South Wales, North-East Lancashire and Merseyside, and we would not hesitate far a moment if the situation worsened elsewhere in Development Areas to build there. This whole policy is not a rigid one. This is an administrative act, which we are constantly keeping under review.

Mr. Patrick Maitland: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, could he go a little further and say what his view is about those places—he knows that I have one in mind at the moment—which may be only a few miles outside a D. A. T. A. C. area, now defined as areas of high and persistent unemployment? If it is the case, as some of us always seem to be seeking to persuade him,


that there are places just outside the strict limits of the areas, as now defined, where employment could be created of a kind to relieve unemployment within the area in question, will he consider these places for D. A. T. A. C. help?

Mr. Rodgers: As I informed the hon. Gentleman at Question Time, in the 1958 Act it is explicitly stated that factories situated just outside a D. A. T. A. C. area which would draw labour from the D. A. T. A. C. area would qualify for D. A. T. A. C. assistance, and therefore firms can make application if it can be shown that they will draw their labour from the D. A. T. A. C. area.

Mr. Maitland: Will my hon. Friend clear up the point a little further? He and a number of his colleagues have recently written to me saying that they would not qualify for assistance under the powers of the 1945 Act.

Mr. Rodgers: I think there is some confusion on the part of my hon. Friend about the powers which we have under the 1945 Act and under the 1958 Act. My answer is that they would qualify for consideration for assistance under the 1958 Act but not under the 1945 Act. However, I must press on, because there are other hon. Members who wish to speak.
Because we want projects to be sound when going into Development Areas, we believe it to be a better long-term policy, bearing in mind the needs of the Development Areas, to build factories for firms which have a definite project in mind and which have definitely expressed a desire for a factory. This is really the thought behind our present factory-building programme. There are at present twenty-eight empty factories in the Development Areas, and all these have been built with the taxpayers' money. We believe that it is prudent to provide further premises by new building only in cases where long-term occupation can be assured.
We are, however, as the hon. Member for Greenock said, operating on an experimental basis, under pressure from certain quarters; and, as a gesture of faith, we are building three advance factories. The value of further speculative building must be judged in the light of the result of that experiment. If we find that factories in

a particular area are claimed before construction, we shall review the situation in the light of that fact. I should like hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to believe me when I say that we are sincere in giving our reasons why it is better to build factories for firms which want them and are able to use them successfully.
We have had some noteworthy successes in our policy, and reference was made by the hon. Member for Abertillery to the Pressed Steel factory at Swansea, which is magnificent. I could give other examples of the way in which we steer big firms into these areas by building factories for them or allowing them to build there.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: What is "advance" about an advance factory in Coatbridge which has been snapped up even before it has got on to the drawing board? Does this not show the shabby nature of the experiment which the Government are conducting in advance factories?

Mr. Rodgers: I was in Coatbridge ten days ago and it had not been snapped up then. I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that it has not been snapped up. but I shall be delighted if the hon. Gentleman's information is correct. I have not got that information at the moment.
New factories are now under construction or approved to an aggregate of 3½ million sq. ft., and will cost about £10 million. The potential new employment from these factories will be, by the end of this year, 6,000 jobs, rising to 11,000 by the end of 1960, and to 17,000 by the end of 1965. I agree that the power to build factories has been one of our most important instruments for achieving our location of industry policy, but it is by no means the only one. Reference was made to the Government's powers under Section 3 of the 1945 Act to make grants or loans to improve basic services in Development Areas, and under Section 5 to make grants to local authorities to clear derelict sites. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is also Minister for Welsh Affairs, who will wind up the debate later on, will say something about the steps which his Department is taking with regard to these powers.
In regard to the clearance of derelict areas, as hon. Gentlemen know, a circular was sent out by my right hon. Friends the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland to local authorities inviting them to put forward schemes for the rehabilitation of derelict sites, and also for water and sewerage schemes coming under Section 3. So far, over fifty projects for work on derelict sites are being discussed by our regional controllers with the authorities concerned. Formal applications in respect of ten of these have reached the Board of Trade headquarters within the last week and are being dealt with as a matter of urgency. I hope that a number of them will go ahead, but hon. Members will recognise that on this matter we are strictly limited by the wording of the Act. The land must be derelict, which means that it must be ownerless or abandoned.
For example, we have not the power to make grants for clearing dilapidated buildings; they can be made only in respect of land which is ownerless and for which the owner has no further use.
The other important power the Government have under the Distribution of Industry Act—

Mr. Fernyhough: What if a local authority held the land, having bought it a long while ago? Would the local authority act in these circumstances?

Mr. Rodgers: If the hon. Gentleman wants an authoritative answer to that question, it would be better if he put it to the Minister of Housing and Local Government.

Mr. Jay: Is the hon. Gentleman right in saying that the land has to be owner-less to qualify? Surely the term in the Act is "derelict". I have never heard it argued that to be derelict it has to be ownerless. If so, how can the greater part of land ever qualify?

Mr. Rodgers: I am not a lawyer, and the intricacies of the law sometimes baffle me. Reference was made to the Coatbridge Canal. This matter is held up by such a legal point as this, which is now with the lawyers. It turns on the question of what is a derelict site. It has to be ownerless or abandoned.

Mr. Jay: Ownerless or abandoned?

Mr. Rodgers: Yes, that is so. I am sorry if I said "and" when I meant "or ". I have not a legalistic mind.
The other important power which the Government have under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958, is that of giving financial assistance to firms setting up or extending in places of high unemployment. The importance of this power is that it is the only one which is available outside the scheduled Development Areas. It allows us to give help to areas outside the Development Areas where the unemployment figures are, unfortunately, above the national average. It is also the only one which can be used—this also is an advantage—for non-industrial undertakings such as hotels or office buildings.
As my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary told the House recently, since the Act of 1958 came into force last July many hundreds of preliminary letters have been received, and a total of 272 firm and eligible applications for assistance have been accepted by D. A. T. A. C., and since then another six have come in. Of these cases, 38 have been approved and a further 201 are currently under consideration. The total assistance offered by the Treasury in the successful cases exceeds £1 million, and it is estimated that the assistance offered should provide new jobs for 1,700 workers.
Many hon. Members may think—this has been said—that this is a very disappointing figure after nine months of the working of this Act. There is a good deal to be said for that view. But it must be remembered that these are new jobs, not just extensions of factories, and they are in the main in places to which industry has shown itself extremely reluctant to move, such as Cornwall and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, places where the major D. A. T. A. C. assistance has not gone.
We must remember that at the end of last July, when the Act was passed, we were only just moving out of a mild recession, and it took some months for people to understand what the facilities available under D. A. T. A. C. were. That is why I sent out my letter and a little pamphlet to 50,000 firms.
The hon. Member for Greenock did not actually refer to the Inchgreen


Investigating Company which has applied for assistance to D. A. T. A. C. in the construction of a large graving dock at Greenock, but I should like to. While normally I would not refer to applications to D. A. T. A. C. but would regard them as confidential, in this case the firm itself has made its application public, although it has not made the precise terms known. I can, consequently, say that the matter is very much in our minds at the moment. It is being considered by the D. A. T. A. C. Committee. We are very well aware of the importance that the project has for Greenock.
The hon. Member for Greenock was less than fair about what we have tried to do for his area, quite apart from Acme, I.B.M. or Playtex, all of which we have helped to develop in his area, and which have provided 1,700 jobs. The Socialist Party was no more successful than we have been at Greenock when it was in office; in fact, it was slightly less successful.
I say from the bottom of my heart that if could get this local unemployment problem out of party politics, no one would be more pleased than I should be. It goes against the grain when I have to keep defending what we have done. This arises largely because of accusations from the other side of the House that we have not done enough or that we do not really care about the problem. Both of those accusations are untrue. Between 1945 and 1951 new factory building for Greenock, private and Government-financed together, provided only 1,200 jobs. The comparable figure from 1952 until now is 1,400 jobs. Neither record is good, and much more has to be done. We are redoubling our efforts. The hon. Gentleman is not justified in saying that we have failed and that the Socialists succeeded. I do not think either party has yet succeeded in regard to Greenock.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: The hon. Gentleman is not being at all fair. I do not want to argue solely on the basis of my own constituency, but the figures from 1952 include the introduction of I.B.M. to Greenock, which was very largely the result of the efforts of the Labour Government in the preceding years. This shows how figures can mislead people about the performances of both parties.

Mr. Rodgers: I grant the hon. Member that point, but perhaps he will grant

that Acme will produce hundreds more jobs.
I would confirm that all Departments and the Committee recognise the importance of taking all the steps that we can to bring employment to the Development Areas.
I should like to say a word about the applications that have been made for assistance under the D. A. T. A. C. scheme. We have had about 160 from England, 80 from Scotland and 40 from Wales. The Scots have had the highest number and proportion of approvals, and England has had the lowest proportion, although not the lowest absolute number.
Finally, it should be mentioned that in certain rural areas there is power to provide moneys from the Development Fund to support local industry and to prevent depopulation. Some of these areas are also places of high unemployment, such as North-West Wales, Buckie/Peterhead and the crofting counties, and in these places factory building will, in suitable cases, be undertaken by the Development Fund. Last year steps to create some 700 jobs were taken under these auspices.
I now turn to the part of the Amendment which urges the Government to take more vigorous control of new factory building by means of industrial development certificates. As I have said, every I.D.C. application for an extension or new premises of over 5,000 sq. ft. can proceed only after it has received a Board of Trade industrial development certificate. I have laid down that large projects, those of over 100,000 sq ft., should come to me personally before they are approved.
I should like to remove any doubts that there may be in any quarter of the House that we are trying to use this I.D.C. instrument as purposefully as we can and that we are prepared to refuse industrial development certificates in appropriate cases. A little later I will give some examples of refusals. B.N.S. has been mentioned but there are many others.
It is often urged that the Government should take stronger action to force firms to go to areas of severe unemployment. But there is a limit to this policy. Those who urge it most strongly seem to have forgotten that conditions have changed since the early post-war years. In those years there were widespread shortages at home and a sellers' market abroad. Firms


could virtually sell anything they made at almost any price. With bulging order books, firms were glad to set up anywhere. But now conditions are quite different. If a firm calculates that it is economic to set up a factory in one place but uneconomic to set it up in another even though we offer it assistance to overcome the handicap, then to prevent it setting up where it wants to may mean that the factory will not be built at all. In that event, no one benefits and the whole community suffers. Despite this, however, since last July we have refused I.D.C.s covering over 3 million sq. ft.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) complained in our last debate that restraint on excessive industrial expansion in congested areas like London had been "feeble"—that was the adjective he used. He quoted the percentage of building that went on in the Development Areas in 1945-47 and 1945-51, and in this way effectively disguised the change in Government policy that took place in 1948 after the exceptional post-war period to which I have just referred. In fact, the percentage is roughly the same-19 per cent.—in 194851 and in 1952-58.
It was in 1948 that industrial development certificates were first introduced, and what the right hon. Gentleman calls "reasonable" development in the London area called for the issue of I.D.C.s to the amount of 11.6 million sq. ft. in 1949. The figure for 1958 was 9.9 million sq. ft. Therefore, even allowing. for war arrears, our record is, if anything, better than that of the party opposite. Again, I only mention this: I do not seek to score a party point. If we can get rid of this thrust and counter-thrust of who has done best, we will the better be able to find new methods of, and a new impetus towards, settling the problem. We are doing our best over the whole picture, and we are doing our best in the pockets of higher unemployment.
The refusal of I. D. C. s is not the whole story, however. I have found that the repeated affirmation of the Government's intention to use this control effectively has led more and more firms to approach the Board of Trade to discuss their plans for expansion before applying for the certificate. I have personally backed this up by talks with leading industrialists,

and national industrial organisations such as the F.B.I., the National Union of Manufacturers and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce.
In these circumstances, it has been possible to persuade many of them to consider the areas of high unemployment, and a number of firms are presently examining the possibility of setting up capacity in these areas. I could quote many examples of firms that have gone to Northern Ireland. One at Swansea has been mentioned. They have gone to Llanelly and to Hull. After having had applications for I.D.C.s refused, they have been steered to the right areas.
I could quote quite a lot of chapter and verse to show that we have exercised the policy fairly rigidly, since I have been in the Department and before.

Mr. John McCann: The last annual report of the Lancashire and Merseyside Development Corporation talks of development in the South and the Midlands. It points out that from 1945 to 1952 the percentage of building in those areas, as against the south-west of Scotland and Wales, has risen from 45 per cent. to 55 per cent. of the total. In other words, in spite of what is being done, the movement is still towards the South of England.

Mr. Percy Wells: Before the hon. Gentleman answers my hon. Friend, would he agree that although the South-East has not suffered, generally speaking, as badly as has the North, there are serious pockets, such as Sheppey, that we have to deal with?

Mr. Rodgers: I quite agree, and the hon. Gentleman knows that we are trying to get firms to Sheppey, and to the Isle of Thanet, too—another area quite near to London that requires firms to be steered to it. Even some of the new towns near London could do with them. It is true that some are very full, but others want more industry and, in particular diversified industry.
This only emphasises the point that we cannot look on this in narrow terms at all. We have to be believed by everybody in the House that we have a common policy; that we are trying to implement it; that we are trying, first of all, to create more employment throughout the


country by active steps, and, in addition that through either the positive inducement powers that we have under the Distribution of Industries Acts or through the negative power of the refusal of I.D.C.s for the expansion of premises or the building of new premises, we are trying to steer those people into the areas which cause all of us, whatever our political persuasions, so much concern. The fact that, as the hon. Member for Abertillery reminded us, these areas are not, our political strongholds only shows the purity of our endeavours—

Mr. Frederick Wiley: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves this point, which is very important, perhaps I may intervene. He has given some examples of where location has been effected by the persuasive influence of his Department. We could do with far more information about this. It is very important that the black spots in the Development Areas should know the sort of factors that have affected decisions like those on location. Cannot we have more information—perhaps in the Board of Trade Journal?

Mr. Rodgers: That is a very interesting point, and it is one to which I have given a good deal of thought, but the House may have realised that I was in some difficulty in saying what I did. If a firm wishes to preserve anonymity in these negotiations it is very difficult to give much detail. I only took some instances where I thought I could preserve that anonymity, whilst using them as examples of our steering policy.
It is only that that prevents greater frankness, and I think that that is why there are some misunderstandings in the House. We cannot often talk about what we are doing, but on my visits to all the areas I have met the local industrialists, the trade union leaders and the local authorities and have been able to tell them what were erroneously-held views of industrialists about their own areas. It is then up to them to do something about it. Equally, I have been able to learn from them certain things that have quietened my own mind in regard to allegations made by industrialists, and have been able, in some cases, to help overcome a slight resistance to change them.
It is awfully difficult to publicise. In fact, the more I publicise—perhaps I should stop talking now—the more diffi-

cult I make the job for myself. I am always seeing industrialists, either singly or collectively. Every firm, of course, has different needs. Some want "boffins" and, therefore, need to be near the universities. Others want male labour, female labour; they want to be near markets or ports, or near some other type of factory. Therefore, even the most desperately needy area is not necessarily the area to which one would steer a particular firm. One must have regard to the economic well-being of the firm and its demands, and to the national economy as a whole.
Quite frankly, I should like to throw myself on the mercy of the House, and to apologise if, sometimes, we have not seemed to be so successful or forthcoming as the House would wish in what we are trying to do, or are doing. But I am sure that it is the nature of the job—as, from his own past experience, the right hon. Gentleman will understand—that this work should be shrouded, until we succeed, in an element of secrecy. If we try to secure publicity before achieving the desired results we might harm the Development Areas.
I assure the hon. Member for Abertillery that the Government are deeply sincere in their desire to use the Distribution of Industry Acts to direct industries to these areas; that we are watching the position, not only with regard to the Development Areas but also with regard to the rest of the country in case some areas should improve and, as the hon. Member suggested, should be de-scheduled, and other areas then put on the schedule.
The whole location-of-industry policy is one that has exercised the minds of my colleagues and myself a great deal in the last few months. We are doing all we can, as a Government, to try to alleviate this extremely grave problem because, I agree, we have somehow to find a method of restoring the balance between one section that may be over-prosperous and another that may be under-privileged. It is our constant endeavour to try to bring about a just balance between these two sections of the community.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Whatever hon. Members who sit behind the Parliamentary Secretary may have thought, no


one on this side can feel satisfied with what the Parliamentary Secretary has said. He is hoping, he is expecting, he is trusting, he is wishing—but at the end of it all we find that after twelve months' further serious consideration of this problem, after nine months of the additional powers which the Government have been able to use had they wanted to do so, they are able to say that they have found jobs for 1,700 people. That is less than 200 a month. At the rate of 2,400 a year it will be a long time before the unemployed in the Development Areas are found jobs.

Mr. Rodgers: I do not think the hon. Member is being fair. That is only one method, as I pointed out. Much more employment has been provided by the erection of factories and the extension of existing Government factories. This method is only one of the means available for providing employment, and the figure of 1,700 is not one which the hon. Member ought to quote against the total employment figure.

Mr. Fernyhough: Surely the position is that the Government had all those powers before? What the Parliamentary Secretary said was that under the new additional powers which the Government had taken unto themselves they had found 1,700 additional jobs. I am saying that because of the manner in which the Government used the powers they had, if the problem is to be solved at the rate of only 200 a month, there is no hope for Scotland, Wales. Tyneside and Mersey-side.
I was interested when the Parliamentary Secretary said that all the Government Departments were working together and were anxious to bring work to the Development Areas. I wonder how much they are working together. I wonder how much one Government Department knows what another Department is doing. In the north-east we are very concerned about the future of shipbuilding. We are also concerned about the uncertain prospects for ship repairing. Let us look at what the Manchester Guardian had to say on 20th April this year:
British tanker launched in Genoa. A 35,000-ton tanker, the 'British Beacon', was launched in Genoa today for British Petroleum Tankers, Ltd.…The British Beacon ' is the third of a group of six identical tankers ordered by the company in Italy for a total cost of more than £11 million.

This is patriotism. They can shout it from the housetops, but this is how patriotic British Petroleum Tankers Ltd. is as far as the shipbuilding industry of this country is concerned.
This morning I went to the Library to find out a little more about this company. I find that it is a subsidiary of the British Petroleum Co. The British Petroleum Co. is one in which the Government hold 50 per cent. of the shares and are entitled to nominate two ex officio directors. Presumably they can also nominate two directors to the subsidiary companies, and these directors, according to my researches, can negative any resolution passed by the board.
I wonder what discussions the Admiralty, which has some responsibility for shipbuilding and ship repairing, had with British Petroleum Tankers Ltd. I wonder what instructions the Government gave to the two appointed directors. I wonder why they were not concerned about this £11 million contract that went abroad. Why did the contract go abroad? Because we could not do it; because we have not the skill and facilities? Of course not. This is a measure of the patriotism of big business.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will discuss this with the Admiralty and the Treasury and ask what the directors of the British Petroleum Co. are doing to permit a contract for fl 1 million to go abroad at a time when a recession is taking place in the shipbuilding and ship repairing industries. This contract could only have gone abroad if the Government were prepared to endorse it. It is because of factors like this that some of the old fears are returning to the so-called Development Areas and particularly Jarrow. We only need to contrast, as it were, today with yesterday as far as these areas are concerned. These are the areas in which our basic industries are situated. Let us look at them. Two years ago the Coal Board was spending hundreds of pounds a week. It was putting advertisements in every newspaper saying:
Coal is a man's job. There is a future in coal.
After the nine o'clock news in the morning the B.B.C. used to help in the recruitment of miners. Does anybody believe that coal is a man's job today?


Does anybody believe that there is still a great future in it? Does anybody believe that the youngsters coming along are as certain today of a good future in the coal industry as they were two or three years ago? Of course they do not.
The Government disclaim responsibility, but what happened? In July, 1957, the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft), who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the House that we had to cut down, that we had to cut back. If one cuts back or cuts down one reduces employment, and that affects the coal industry as much as any other industry.
The same thing applies to the cotton industry. We had huge advertisements in every newspaper saying:
Britain's bread depends on Lancashire's thread.
The men and women in the cotton towns no longer believe that. It is said that the Government cannot do anything about these things when it is a question of coal because the consumer must have a free choice, and that if people prefer oil to coal, or if industry prefers oil to coal, we must not in any way interfere with their choice.
If we applied that yardstick to British farming, where would British farming be? It would be bankrupt and out. Everybody knows that the British farmer does not compete. Everybody knows that we do not expect the British farmer to produce at an economic price. We subsidise him to the tune of about £240 million a year. Every bit of bacon, every pint of milk and every pound of butter produced is cheaper abroad than we can buy it here. Why is this so?

Sir James Duncan: That is wrong. British farm produce is the cheapest in the world. I challenge the hon. Gentleman to go to any Continental country and look at the cost of living. The cost of meat and even bread is cheaper in Britain than anywhere else.

Mr. Fernyhough: I am a layman, but this is remarkable. The retail price of milk is 73d. a pint. It takes, I am told, eight pints of milk to produce 1 lb. of butter. Yet Danish butter today is selling retail in our shops at 3s. 2d. a pound. How in the name of fortune can our food be the cheapest in the world at that

price? Why, if it is the cheapest, do we have tariffs to keep foreign food out?

Sir J. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman does not know very much about farming. There is no quota about it.

Mr. Fernyhough: I did not say under quota.

Sir J. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman talked about butter and I must assume that he was relating one to the other. The main sources of butter in this country are foreign and Commonwealth countries.

Mr. Fernyhough: Exactly. I am not disputing it. Will the hon. Gentleman say that we do not have any restrictions on bacon imports or on agricultural produce? Of course we do. All the time people ask for the tariffs to be put up to protect our horticulture, and so on.

Sir J. Duncan: Oh, no.

Mr. Fernyhough: Of course they do. The truth is that the policy of the right hon. Member for Monmouth was successful. When introducing it, he said, "It will make some folks' beds very hard upon which to lie. It means sacrifices. It means that we must tighten our belts and that we will suffer." The right hon. Gentleman does not appear to have suffered very much. There are a lot of other folks who have suffered as a consequence of his policy. That was the beginning of the fear that we had said goodbye to full employment as a policy. That was a deliberate attempt by the Government to slow things up and to reduce production. We know what the consequences are.
Anyone who has lived in the areas where there was mass unemployment in the pre-war years knows that of all the social gains in the post-war years, the one that is cherished most and has done most for human dignity, self-respect and confidence is the creation of full employment. To ordinary men and women who had to touch their caps, to hold their tongues between their teeth, to accept injustice and to be humiliated constantly, full employment has given a dignity and self-respect which they never had before. It is something to which they are entitled and something which they should be able to retain, but that is impossible so long as the Government take the line they do.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that we on this side were against industries developing and taking advantage of all the technological advances that might be coming along. Nothing of the kind. We are not Luddites. We are progressives. We are for expansion. What we say is that the Government have some responsibility, if they see that the trend is for an industry to contract, to redouble their efforts before the contraction has gone too far and to send the new industries to the areas where the contraction is occurring, rather than to pretend that it must always be the responsibility of the individual worker to tear himself up from the place where he has his roots and transplant himself in a foreign soil.
Even if the able-bodied workers are transferred from areas where industries are dying, we leave behind an old community to face all the debt which the local authorities incur, because the local authorities have built schools, hospitals, sewerage schemes, roads and so on. The debt does not become any the less because the young, vigorous population leaves. The debt is left for an ageing population—and, in some cases. an unemployed population—to carry. That is itself a tragedy.
The greatest tragedy of all is for the young workers of immature years when they leave school in these areas, and for whom there is no job. It would not be reasonable to expect them to transfer at the age of 15 or 16. A working-class boy or girl will have had a year longer at school than most of us. He has had a wider and better education. He leaves school at the age of 15 and thinks, "Now is the time when I can begin to make a contribution to the home and exercise a little independence." What happens, however, is that there is no job for him. If positions are not found for these young people, what is certain is that, in the long run, prisons will have to be built for them. People can talk as much as they like about child delinquency, but nothing will make a bigger contribution to child delinquency than to bring up boys or girls to the age of 15, with as broad and liberal an education as possible, and then to put them in the position in which they are second-class citizens, where they are not wanted, do not count and do not matter and where no position

in society can be found for them. If anybody thinks that that is the way to treat young people, they must recognise that unquestionably some of the young people, out of bitterness and despair, will take the wrong road. It will be society and not themselves that is to blame, because we should so be able to organise our affairs that the tragedy of young people wanting work but being denied it should never exist in a civilised society.
I should like to think that when Ministers and hon. Members on the Government side speak of unemployment, they are speaking for those who help to provide employment. There are, however, different voices. Many of us were very disturbed about the remarks of Sir William Garrett, the President of the British Employers' Confederation, who said that the important thing was that the Government
should not recreate the acute shortage of skilled labour which has so long bedevilled our efforts to increase efficiency.
He went on:
I think the facts show that these are not times for drastic measures. And it is most important that the Government should not bring about again that situation of overfull ' employment which has been the cause and accompaniment of the inflation to which we have been subjected for the last twelve years.
He went on with something which, in my opinion, was a criminal observation. He said that three-quarters of the men wholly unemployed were labourers or were in unskilled work and added:
There are only 70,000 adult skilled or semi-skilled men wholly unemployed today.
What does he mean? Apparently the unskilled worker or the labourer does not matter; he does not have a belly to fill. a back to clothe or a wife and children dependent upon him. Because he is unskilled or a labourer he does not matter. But that man has as much right to earn his daily bread in a respectable manner and to be given the dignity of manhood by rendering a useful service to the community as anybody else. It is terrifying that men in powerful positions of this kind, such as Sir William, should talk in this manner about the problem of unemployment.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Government were doing all they could. In my constituency, since we have 6 or 7 per cent. unemployment—and the figure has been up to 8 per cent.


—I wondered why the Tyne Tunnel could not be started. This is a project which has been under discussion for years. At last, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation has said that it has been agreed and the go-ahead signal can be given, although he cannot say when. I recently asked whether we could not make a start on the approach roads to find work for those who are unemployed, but "Oh no. not on your Nelly". We must wait until there have been a lot more conferences and a lot more discussions.
There is another way in which the Government might help to relieve Tyneside unemployment, particularly in the shipyards, and that is in regard to the new "Queens". We think we have as great a claim as anybody else to some of this work. It is a terrible reflection upon our society that Merseyside, Clydeside and Tyneside should all scramble for the same jobs, each trying to grasp whatever it can because they all face the menace of unemployment and all fear it.
We must face realistically the fact that unemployment is the substantive challenge of this age. If the idea gets abroad that the capitalist system can provide full employment only in war and cannot provide full employment in peace, let nobody believe that that will help to maintain the system. We are supposed to be engaged in a great ideological struggle. I believe it is a battle for men's souls rather than for their bodies.
Millions of people have not yet decided on which side to come down. They have not made up their minds whether the West or the East is right. If unemployment is again to be the lot of our people, and if it is seen that the West has boom, slump, unemployment and stagnation, let nobody make a mistake about the effects of the impact of that situation upon the uncommitted peoples. If they see stagnation looming up in the West but expanding production and increasing prosperity in the East, that could be the decisive factor in helping them to make up their minds.
When the Prime Minister is not in the House he realises that, too. Not long ago he gave an interview on the television to Ed Morrow, in which he said, "The free world is not going to defend itself by rockets and bombers, however good they are, but it will defend itself when outside people say that ours is the better

way of living, because it gives the individual a fuller life and gives him the kind of thing he wants." If we are to have a world unemployment recession we can have all the rockets in the world, but we shall not defend ourselves against Communism or Left Wing propaganda. We shall defend ourselves if we can prove that this is the best way of living.
It cannot be the best way of living so long as men who are willing to work are denied work. We cannot be satisfied with the report which the Parliamentary Secretary has given us this afternoon. We do not feel that the Government are free from blame for the growing fears in the Development Areas. There is only one hope for the Development Areas and for the workers of this country, and that is for them to get those who are now sitting on Government benches out and to get us in.

6.23 p.m.

Mr. J. C. George: I will not follow the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Ferny hough) down the broad road that he has travelled, although he finally arrived at the Development Areas before he sat down. I will stay in the Development Areas.
Those who had the pleasure of working with S. A. R. A., the Special Areas Reconstruction Association, in the year before the war, saw what could be done by steering industry into areas where distress was heavy. I was pleased to see the 1945 Act passed by the Coalition Government. I believe there is an impression that that Act has been a failure, but we should look for a moment to see what it has done and then look into the future to see what it might still do.
It is salutary to read again what was said in the debate in 1945. There is an undertone in Opposition speeches today that we are not forcing industry nearly enough to do what hon. Gentlemen think is necessary. That was never the intention of the Distribution of Industry Bill, as was very clearly stated by the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) and the Minister of Production. now Lord Chandos, in the debate which took place on 21st March, 1945. The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said:
It is not a plan to say what industry shall make and where it shall make it; it is a plan aimed at, first, the balance and diversification of industry, second, the preservation of


amenities of our country and, third, at military security. These are the three touchstones by which we shall judge the location of industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1945; Vol. 409, c. 949.]
These were the purposes of the Bill as seen by its sponsors in 1945.
What has happened to them in the intervening time? I will not spend much time about the preservation of amenities. We can see that the policy of the location of industry has helped by preventing too great an agglomeration of industries in one place. The military effort, stressed very much during the passage of the Bill, has rather faded into the background. The main aspect of the location of industry has been its effect of diversification. It would be wrong not to say that diversification has proceeded a long way in Scotland since 1945. The face of Scottish industry has changed. There are many new units of production in Scotland. We have vast industries producing such things as accounting machinery, earth-moving equipment and heavy vehicles, and other new things which have come along since 1945. They have been steered gently into the areas where they could best serve the good of the nation.
"Diversification" is a popular word. It is sometimes felt that diversification is the whole answer. We have succeeded to a very great extent. The Minister of Production gave his view about diversification in the debate to which I have referred when he said:
I think it is unnecessary to deploy very long arguments about the advantages of diversifying industry. It is a palliative even if it is not a cure, for unemployment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1945; Vol. 409, c. 940.]
I want to stress that point. We have found it not a cure but a palliative. There were wide discrepancies in the unemployment figures in Scotland for 1938 and for the year before the Act was passed in 1945. We should look at the figures since that date to see whether we are achieving anything by the location of industry. These figures are extremely interesting. I was surprised at the sponsors of the Amendment saying that "long-standing differences still exist". That was last year, and the figures are up.
Let us look at the five years beyond and to what happened to the attempt to equate unemployment throughout Scotland. I shall give the national figures and the Development Area figures. The

national figure in Scotland in 1945 was 2·8 per cent. and, in the Development Areas, it was 3 per cent. There was not much difference between them then. In 1955 it was 2·4 per cent. in Scotland as a whole and 2·6 per cent. in the Development Areas. In 1956 the figures were 2·4 per cent. and 2·6 per cent. and in 1957, 2·6 per cent. and 2·7 per cent. The figures were getting closer. The disparities of the 1930s had gone and the national average was more nearly applicable to the whole of Scotland.

Mr. Willey: Mr. Willeyrose—

Mr. George: I realise what the hon. Member is going to say, that we must look at the matter in a broad way. I agree that those figures include areas where the position was not so good. Looking at the broad picture. it is true to say that in Scotland we have gone a long way. Unfortunately, in 1958 we started to diverge again, for then the national average was 3·7 per cent. and in the Development Areas it was 4·2 per cent. In December of that year—taking one month, which I never think a good thing to do—in Scotland as a whole the figure was 4·7 per cent. and, in the Development Areas, 5·3 per cent. The lesson to be learned from these figures is that the wide variations in 1954 have disappeared and that we may be reaching a point at which we shall have equal figures for the whole of Scotland.
The figures in 1958 showed that we were still vulnerable. Diversification of industry was a palliative, but not a cure. I want to look at what the future holds for us and to look at the question objectively. In Scotland we had great success in attracting new industries and we must pay tribute to the Scottish Council for the notable part it played in that task. I have quoted figures to show how the Development Areas average was coming nearer to the national average. In order to make my case, I must say that never at any time in those five years have they been less than double the national average for the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the point I have always in mind. What of the future? Are we likely to have more or less success in attracting new industries? The success we have had has stemmed from the success in attracting American investment. Are we to


be less or more successful in that in the years ahead?
As laid down by the Scottish Council, we have provided 4,000 new jobs per annum in Scotland, where we have been bringing these figures together. If we had kept the Scottish figures equal to the national average we should have provided 12,000 new jobs in manufacturing industry. In the next ten years we must provide 120,000 new jobs. That is a huge task to tackle. How are we to get assistance in that task? Take, first, the expansion of existing industries and assume that we shall do as well in future as we have done in the past; we hope we shall do better. Then there is assistance from the United States of America and other foreign investment. The third item is the contribution from England in expanding industries. I wish to spend some time on those three points.
What is the picture for the future on foreign investment, particularly from the United States? In 1957 we had great success when by far the greatest percentage of industry coming from America went to Scotland. That was not to be wondered at because in those years the climate was favourable. United States businessmen recognised quite clearly that they were pricing themselves out of the export market. They wanted somewhere abroad where they could produce cheaply and obtain new markets for those they were losing. That was their problem. It was not the seduction of the Scottish Council, but their own selfish, individual interest which made them come to this country. I think they would have come without any of the attractions we gave by way of cheap rents, because they badly needed somewhere where they could produce cheaply. There was practically no one requesting them to set up in the United States.
Things have vastly changed today. We must take account of that and see what is to come out of it. We are not alone in requesting the United States to bring new industry. There are more than 1,000 organisations in America trying to induce firms to settle there in their own towns. It is going to be a hard battle. Dominating American industrial thinking about investment abroad today is the Common Market in Europe. They are hypnotised

by the possibilities of that vast new market. They love its size, which is something like America itself. They love the volume of production they can sell in that market and they see a chance of getting manufacturing costs at the American level. In the Common Market they see these benefits and also a tariff wall arising behind which they can shelter with all these benefits.
There is a magnet turning them away from Scotland, England and Wales into Western Europe. That is something we cannot disregard. Not only do we see America having a market there to her liking and a tariff wall erected to help her in that market, but we see the amazing picture of France, and I know she will be followed by others as others have preceded her, offering fantastic inducements. In the Daily Herald there is an article which says:
France sets a bait for British firms. Tax aid and loans if they go to Calais.

Mr. Willey: As he has referred to that article, is the hon. Member aware that it is alleged that two Conservative hon. Members are in fact directors of the publicity firm which is inducing capitalists to place their money in France?

Mr. George: I should be quite certain that if it were not done by those two gentlemen it would be done by others.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: That is no excuse.

Mr. George: It is no excuse, but the job will be done in any case. The fact is that United States industries which helped us so much in the post-war years are now having these magnificent attractions of the Common Market and a tariff fence, plus these inducements to set up in Europe. We must ask ourselves what attractions we can produce in Scotland to offset the attractions which are now evident in Europe. If we cannot produce those inducements to bring industry from the United States, we can look forward to years ahead when they will not be coming to Scotland but going to Europe.
We have had some guidance on the position of our propaganda in the United States from Sir Robert Maclean, as reported in the Glasgow Herald of 13th March, this year, when he spoke of the mission from the Scottish Council to


North America. He is reported as having said:
…competition for new investment is keen.
Canvassing in the United States for new factories is being done, it is estimated, by over 1.000 agencies …Some of the programmes to attract new investment are backed by substantial funds and are carried through by large permanent staffs …while the strong and continuing advantages of Britain as a production base are not being adequately presented.
I am trying to present a picture of severe competition with heavy advantages against us and our case being inadequately put in the United States, according to Sir Robert Maclean. What are we to do about it? The Scottish Council has done a magnificent job. All through its history it has desired to be free from Government support, but can that go on any longer? As suggested in that speech by Sir Robert Maclean, it is facing failure in the United States. In spite of its efforts, we are told that our case is not being adequately presented.
What are we to do about it? There are a thousand agencies seeking United States industries and we ourselves are not doing the job well enough. I suggest that the Scottish Council should be made a stronger body and should receive Government contributions to its funds. In the United States it has a voluntary committee, with eminent Scotsmen in charge, with the entree to the big industries' boardrooms. These people can do a good job but, as I have said, we have been told that the job is not being done well enough, and we feel that it should be done better. The Council should be asked to accept money from the Government in order to boost its efforts in the United States. If that is not acceptable, we nevertheless cannot rest while our case is not adequately presented in the present atmosphere of competition, and the Government must set up a body of their own in the United States to sell Britain to United States industrialists.
Still speaking about selling Britain and especially Scotland, can anything be done elsewhere? Something is being done in Scandinavia by local authorities, but what is done to sell the opportunities of industry in Britain to other industrial firms abroad which may want to set up in Europe? What agencies have we in other countries for this purpose? Has each ambassador on his staff an industrial

attaché who can present to the country in which he is acting the benefits for industries coming to Britain? Is there any other way which can be devised to sell Britain abroad far better than is being done today?
Those are the mechanics of the situation. What inducement should we offer to try to turn the balance in our favour? Unless the advantages of Scotland are overwhelming, inducements will always be required, but in the present atmosphere in America, with the flood of requests from other countries for American industry, there will be great difficulty. We know that Northern Ireland is among the countries offering inducements to American industry. In that atmosphere, what inducements can we in Scotland provide to turn the tide?
I believe that the tide is running so heavily against us that there is very little that we can offer. Frankly, if the Common Market is established and proceeds according to plan, and if we are in no way connected with it, I believe that it will have a strong impact upon our industries. I believe that the only thing we can do is to ensure. by whatever logical and sound means are at our disposal, that some accommodation is reached between the Common Market and the concept of a Free Trade Area. If that can be done, one of the major fears in my mind will be removed.
We can already see the trend towards the Common Market at work. In the last three months six new American industries have been set up in Holland, whereas in the last six months not one has been set up in Scotland. It is already beginning to work, and I have fears for the future in Scotland. I believe, frankly, that unless some accommodation is reached between the Common Market and the Free Trade Area concept, the outlook for us is bleak.

Mr. Lawson: The hon. Member has told us a lot about what the Americans should do for Scotland. Will he tell us what Scottish business men should do for Scotland?

Mr. George: If the hon. Member will wait I will tell him exactly what they should do.
We shall still attract some industry, because Scotland has natural advantages but, apart from those firms which we


attract naturally, I think that the Government should watch very carefully the inducements which are being offered by countries which have no tariff protection. We should match the attractions offered elsewhere.
What of the position if United States industries do not come to Scotland? That is the question which the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) asked me. We are told by the Scottish Council that it is convinced that there is adequate capital in Scotland, and the reason it has pressed for American industry to come to Scotland is not a shortage of capital but a lack of know-how and technical skill in Scotland. The Council obtained technical skill from America, and capital with it, and helped Scotland in the new age of technical advance.
The position which I postulate is this: if American industry no longer comes to us and if Scottish capital is available but not the skill, the problem is changed to one of how we are to marry the skill which exists in America with the capital which exists in Scotland. That is the problem which we have to face. We have the licensing arrangements, which offer the obvious way to marry the skill without bringing capital from America, but if United States industries set up in Europe, it is unlikely that those industries will give us the know-how.
There will, however, still he many industries left in the United States from which we can obtain the know-how to start new industries and to introduce new techniques into this country. I think that the Scottish industrialists should seek out and expand the present methods of obtaining licences from the United States for new processes, along with the know-how, and should apply Scottish capital to this know-how and turn it into new industries in the absence of United States industry. I put it to the Minister that if we marry American skill with Scottish capital in this way, the industry thus created should be treated by the Government as if it were a new American industry setting up in Scotland and should receive the benefits which that American industry would have received.
We are told that in certain modern processes American skill is much higher than ours. We are told that Scottish capital exists. If we are to marry the two we have to find ways and means of training our men in America. It can be done.

When I left the coal mining industry in 1946 I knew nothing about glass making, but I went to America and spent six months being taken around glass-making factories in the United States. The Americans very willingly showed me all the know-how. I admit that I had no intention of competing directly with them, but I would emphasise that the doors were open and the skills were laid on the table for me to pick them up. I believe that we can extend that a great deal. Much good will exists in America for Scottish industry.
I would emphasise, too, that Scottish industry should be more ready to take graduates on the staff. We are not doing enough in this direction. The Scotsman on 30th June, 1958, reported the Glasgow University Appointments Committee as having said that there was still too great a tendency among Scottish firms to wait until the need became desperate before they sought to recruit university graduates. The graduate is the type of trained man who can accept all the information which the Americans are prepared to give. There is plenty to give.
The urgency of adopting this policy becomes greater and greater as the threat increases of American industry ceasing to move to Scotland. In order to overcome the lack of American industry flowing into Scotland —and I am afraid that it may cease to flow into Scotland—these are steps which we must take.
These great and important jobs lie at the door of free enterprise. There is little that the Government can do about them. if free enterprise is to be the dominant partner in our economy, it must seek out and accept its responsibilities—and I believe that in Scotland this is one of the responsibilities which it must accept. if industry does not move into Scotland from abroad, we must try to help our own industries.
There is another way which we have a right to explore. We have already taken one large step forward in taking a strip mill to Scotland. I agree that this prevented Wales from having a bigger strip mill, but we know that the result will be to create new industries in Scotland in the years which lie ahead. Nevertheless, I am not certain that this and the other things which I have mentioned will achieve my object, and what should be the object of the Unionist Party, of


bringing the unemployment figures of Scotland down to the national average within ten years.

Mr. T. Fraser: Ten years?

Mr. George: I believe that it is a very big job and will take ten years.
I suggest that we must take two other steps. First, we must not wait until application is made for development certificates. I should like to see the present relationship between the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State for Scotland reviewed and some changes made so that the Secretary of State could offer inducements to firms to move into Scotland from England.
If I were in his place I should go to the vehicle industry in England, which is bound to expand, and I should offer it the same conditions in Scotland as we have given to others to set up its next major development. I should go to the electrical industry and offer it the same conditions to set up in Scotland as we have given to the strip mill. I believe that an additional £100 million is not too great a price to pay for equating Scotland's figures to the national average. These three bold steps could in a few years so change the face of Scottish industry that we could look to the future with confidence.

6.50 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. George). I completely agree with much of what he said, I was interested in what he said about our need to do everything possible to attract American industry, and again I am in full agreement with that.
I was interested in the hon. Gentleman's final suggestion about how we ought to go into England and attract English industry to come to Scotland. I should have liked the hon. Gentleman to have devoted a longer part of his speech to what Scottish industrialists themselves might do for Scotland. The position which we are in at present can be, to a very great extent, laid at the door of the lack of initiative of Scottish industrialists themselves. It is due to the capital which is in Scotland—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollock agreed that it was in

Scotland—not being used for development in Scotland. It is very often used for development outside.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollock is a very able Member. I hope that he will use all the influence he has, not so much with the Americans, not so much with the English, but with our industrialists in Scotland.
I want to touch on one other very important point which the hon. Gentleman made. I am fortunate in having one of those American firms in my constituency. It is doing an excellent job. I hope to see many more coming. Like the hon. Gentleman, I feel that there is very little opportunity in the future so long as the Common Market offers the opportunities that it does to American industrialists, who are very hard-headed businessmen. Every effort should be made by the Government to establish as soon as possible what came to be known as the Free Trade Area. If that is not done, Scotland will suffer greatly.
This is a debate on Development Areas. My constituency is in a Development Area and has been in a Development Area ever since these areas were scheduled. I want to speak first about one part of my constituency, and that is the part which has been more badly hit by pit closures than almost any other part of the United Kingdom, whether it be Scotland, England or Wales. The first closure after nationalisation took place in 1949. We know that many pits in Lanarkshire were closed long before nationalisation, but the first pit closure in my constituency after nationalisation was in 1949.
From 1949 to 1958, in one village alone in my constituency five deep mine collieries and two others were closed. The number of men employed in those seven undertakings at the time of closure was 1,174. That is a very large number. If one had been able to obtain the figures of previous years, they might have shown that the figure of 1,174 was a very conservative estimate.
When the mass closures were announced by the National Coal Board, three further collieries in that same district became doomed. One of those three was in the village where the seven other undertakings had already closed. The second was on one side of it, and the third


was on the other side of it. Taking the area as a whole, three have been doomed. I was told by the National Coal Board that at the time of the decision to close these collieries 987 men were employed. Altogether, in less than ten years in this one small area of Scotland we have lost 2,161 jobs. That is a very serious position for that area.
The village in that area which has been worst affected is Shotts, but the surrounding villages of Cleland, Harthill, Salsburgh and Newmains also have been seriously affected. The Parliamentary Secretary said that we had to have some system of priorities and that whatever help could be given by the Board of Trade must be given to the worst areas. The hon. Gentleman said to my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) that it was not a case of areas where unemployment was threatened but where unemployment existed. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock asked for intelligent anticipation. He urged, in other words, that the Government should not wait until a place became derelict before they decided that some action should be taken.
The Minister might say that most of the men made redundant by these closures have been placed elsewhere. That is true. The Minister might say also that unemployment is not as high in that part of Scotland as it is elsewhere. Again, I agree that that is true. For the area covered by the Shotts Employment Exchange the latest figure I have been able to find out is 4.6 per cent. That is very much higher than the national average, although it is not as high as the figure for the whole of North Lanarkshire, the latest figure for which is 8.4 per cent.
I am not basing my case today for new industry for this area so much on the figures of unemployment, although they are far too high in that area. There is scarcely a job for women in that area. The Minister said that he could not be an industrial Canute and keep back progress and that there had to be certain developments in industry. I am not asking the Minister or the Government to take any steps that will keep back progress. All I am asking them to do is to anticipate progress or decline of an industry in any area and to take steps to meet any kind of development that

might make an area a derelict area. I am attempting to make the Minister realise that, if he does not apply to this district all his powers for the distribution of industry, its future is a very bleak one indeed.
As I said when I started, this district has always been a Development Area but has so far reaped very little benefit from that fact. For years I have tried to make the Government realise the importance of planning ahead, as have my hon. Friends the Members for Greenock and Abertillery (The Rev. Ll. Williams), in his wonderful speech moving the Amendment. I have tried to bring out clearly that the Government must plan ahead if such areas are not to be left derelict. If we do not do something quickly there, and in areas in, for example, Durham, that will be hit in exactly the same way as mine has been by the closure of pits, they will, indeed, be left almost derelict.
In previous debates, I have produced the kind of statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery has given today to show how, right from 1951 until 1958, this Government were not using all the powers they had to ensure that more industries and greater diversification of industry came to these areas. Since these figures have been given so adequately already, I do not intend to repeat them.
Are not the Government interested in the social assets of this area and similar areas where the mass closures will have a very great effect? Are they not interested in the housing that local authorities have provided, in the privately-owned houses, in the churches, the schools, the halls and the shopping facilities? Are they quite content to allow between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs to disappear and make little or no attempt to ensure that some other kind of industry comes in?
I should like the Minister to tell me if the Government have any proposals at this time to give us some other kind of industry that will absorb some, at least, of the 2,161 jobs that have already been lost. Young miners and their families are moving out every week. I do not blame them. If I were a young miner and wanted to continue in the mining industry, then, whether or not my pit was closing, I would move to a developing area where my family could put down


roots when young and where they would be able to make their lives in the future. But what about those who will not be moving? Are the Government content to see these places left as sad depressed districts occupied only by old people, or have they any intention of planning to ensure that there is a future there?
I should like the Minister of Housing and Local Government to clear up a specific point on overspill. As I have said, many of the miners are moving out of this district, so it seems to me to be a most suitable place for an overspill arrangement with Glasgow. I know that the Lanarkshire County Council has great doubts about these overspill agreements and has not been willing to make one with Glasgow. If the Minister can tell us what industrial advantages would be brought in by an overspill agreement, it would be a very great help to the area and might help me in trying to influence the local authority to come to an agreement.
I know that many industries will have to move out of Glasgow. I want to know whether the areas that take Glasgow overspill will have advantages in receiving them. We would give them a great welcome in Shotts and the neighbourhood. The Joint Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Craigton (Mr. J. N. Browne), knows a little about this area, I am sure. It has a fine community spirit. For its size, it has outstanding cultural and sports facilities. People are proud of their village, and many of them are willing at all times to give of their time and energy to all kinds of community activities. It is because it is such a place that I have tried over these years to ensure that it has a future. If we can be assured that there will be industrial advantages, a very great welcome would be given to the overspill population, who would find that they were coming to an area which, besides offering advantages in industry, would offer them very great advantages in many other ways.
We have been told about the strip mill that is coming to Scotland. Fortunately, at the end of my constituency near Glasgow. the cold rolling process of the strip mill will be sighted. A little over eighteen months ago. 1,100 men were working at Smith & McLean's steelworks at Gartcosh. Today, the figure is just

over 500. I understand that, in the first instance, the number employed in this final process of cold rolling for the strip mill will be between 500 and 600. In other words, the area will have lost about 600 jobs.
The fact that the end-product of the steel mill is to be in that area should bring great hope, but here, again, I want the Government to use intelligent anticipation—not merely to look at the figures of unemployed, high as they are, but to realise that if we are to benefit from having this end product of the strip mill in that part of my constituency the Government can and must help greatly.
I ask the Government now to review the area around Gartcosh. Not very far from Gartcosh, the Lanarkshire County Council is building what could at least be described as a new village, almost a new town, to house the people over a very wide area. That seems to me to be a most suitable place for the intelligent planning of future industry by the Government. I ask them to use the services of their regional controller and his staff to survey the area in order to find out the possibility of industrial sites, so that when this steel strip project is completed —and I will really enjoy the day when I see the first product coming from the cold rolling mill—we will know that planning has taken place, and we will have industries in these areas. This is a heaven-sent opportunity to attract new industries to this area. The Government must not lose this opportunity.

7.10 p.m.

Lady Tweedsmuir: The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) did less than justice to the efforts that the Government have been making for a very long time to try to induce industry to go to just those areas like her own that are suffering from a revolutionary change in the sources of power, the advance of technology and other sciences. In almost the same breath she mentioned the fact that Scotland is to have the strip mill, part of which is to be in her own constituency.
I wish to deal with Scotland's problems because I feel that it is very necessary for all concerned in the future of Scotland to do their utmost to bring down unemployment there to a level comparable with that in the United Kingdom. Over a long period of years, unemployment in


Scotland has, on average, been about twice as bad as it has been south of the Border. A great deal has been done lately through the Budget and through bringing forward public works to the extent of £10 million in response to local and immediate pressing needs. There are also the longer-term needs such as the expansion of atomic energy for industrial purposes, and, of course, the steel strip mill.
It would be wise for us to take together all the Distribution of Industry Acts and the other Acts which are available to give financial or other assistance and consider how much we want to have temporary measures and what really is the long-term pattern of industry and employment which we wish to see shaped in Scotland as a whole.
From all I have heard, I believe that there is no lack of capital in Scotland at this lime, and I do not, therefore, believe that the inducements of D. A. T. A. C. will really be so helpful as they might be thought. For instance, in my own area of Aberdeen there have been only six firm, eligible inquiries. Two applications have been granted, one has been rejected, and three are under consideration.
Many of the problems were summed up in a letter I received from a firm which I know well, having worked in it during the war. It is an engineering firm which, in the normal way, makes horizontal diesel engines. It has recently put in capital equipment to the extent of £50,000, and it has a very good force of work people, many of whom have been there for several years.
In its letter, the firm said:
Until 1954, we exported close on a quarter of a million pounds of horizontal diesel engines annually to the Middle and Far Eastern countries and South America. Since then, through balance of payments difficulties, tariff barriers such as those erected in India and Pakistan, political upheavals in Abadan, Suez, Syria and Iraq, we have been faced with a continual shrinking market, until today it is reduced to an uneconomic level. For the past few years, we have filled this gap in our works by making, under sub-contract, coal making machinery and cargo oil pumps for tankers.
What this company really needs is to be put in touch with firms which would give it some kind of sub-contracting work.
This firm has done a great deal. I quote this situation as an example of the kind of problem which must confront a

good many long-established companies in Scotland.
The company is in the closest contact with the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) and with the United States consul. It has had people travelling abroad, searching in every direction for two things. It wants a chance to make new products, but, as everyone knows, it takes about two years for a firm to tool up and get into production and to manufacture under licence agreements with overseas firms. In the meantime, it wants to be put in the way of some kind of sub-contracting work. It is not the type of firm with requirements which are difficult to meet, because it is able to undertake the manufacture of any mechanical engineering product from a few pounds to 7½ tons.
This is where I turn my attention to the Board of Trade. I really believe that the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) has, to a very large extent, taken over the functions of the Board of Trade in Scotland. We all know that the Scottish Office does not have the powers of the Board of Trade. As I think most hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies will agree, the Scottish Council has done very fine work. But I cannot help noticing that the Development Council in Northern Ireland, under Lord Chandos, has a direct grant of £40,000. I do not in the least mind asking that the Scottish Council should be given some form of direct grant in this way in order to open branch offices all over the place.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. George) said, we are in a time of the fiercest competition. I believe he said that in America there are over 1,000 agencies representing other countries. According to figures which I have, there are over 6,000 agencies representing the Commonwealth, South America and Europe as a whole. We have commercial sections attached to our embassies, but this is really not enough. We must ensure that a body such as the Scottish Council can continue work which undoubtedly has been of the greatest benefit so far.
In considering what we hope will he the shape and future of Scottish industry, we have in mind the future work of the strip mill which will give us the basic material support we very badly want. As hon. Members on both sides of the


House, in debate after debate since the end of the war have said, Scotland needs to reduce her dependence on heavy industry. Manufacturing industry in Scotland provides about one-eighth fewer jobs than is the case in the rest of the United Kingdom. The net increase in this type of job every year amounts to about 4,000 jobs altogether, compared—taking population and everything else into account—with about 12,000 south of the border.
If it is difficult for individual firms to find the markets which they need, would it not be possible for the Government to encourage individual firms to come together and form a consortium for the purpose of obtaining orders and producing new consumer products? After all, it is a very long-established practice in capital goods manufacturing for companies to come together and form a consortium, and I do not see why it could not be done by smaller firms if they were put in touch with people ready to buy the right type of product for them to manufacture. They would then, in my submission, be able to join together and evolve the methods of mass production techniques which are so important and which are prevalent in North America.
In my view the various Distribution of Industry Acts should be reviewed. Basically, they were thought out about fifteen years ago. We on this side of the House do not accept that there should be direction either of labour or on industry. Therefore, if we are to rely on inducements or financial assistance in Scotland, we must consider Scotland as a whole. The trouble about all these Acts is that they benefit the United Kingdom as a whole, but that they do not offset the geographical disadvantages of Scotland. Even if she does benefit, Scotland's problems are always twice as difficult as the problems south of the Border. I say quite frankly, therefore, that, if there is to be a determined effort to take advantage of the very fine labour force and fine basic facilities there are in Scotland, the inducements must be specially favourable to Scotland as a whole.
There are very few parts of Scotland which are left out if one looks at all the areas which are either scheduled now or which come within the original Development Areas. Practically the whole of

Scotland already comes in either the one category or the other.
It seems to me that we are slipping into a position where the whole of the country north of the Border will be eligible for special assistance. Therefore, the special inducements, however they may be devised, should be preferential for the country north of the Border because it has to offset its geographical disadvantages. The Government will probably use the well-worn phrase, "You will spread the jam too thin". My answer to that, at a time when we are striving for industrial expansion, is, go and buy another pot of jam. [An HON. MEMBER: "Marmalade."] Not marmalade, because that is too sticky. I should say that a proper simile, if one is wanted, is oil because it flows evenly and quickly into the crevices where it is most needed.
The trouble about the Distribution of Industry Acts is that because the country is divided into areas which are sometimes 40 miles apart, one area is eligible for assistance and the other area placed 40 miles away is not. Therefore, there are delays about decisions, about whether the unemployment percentage is high enough and whether the unemployment has gone on long enough. That is the wrong approach altogether.
I agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North who said that unless we get a solution to the Free Trade Area problem we shall not attract the foreign industries that we need to Scotland or to the United Kingdom as a whole. I hope that the Minister will tell us, if he can, the latest developments in the discussions between the seven countries concerned about the new arrangement of the Free Trade Area under O. E. E. C.
Scotland's problem industrially is very much akin to that of the Commonwealth. Much of Scotland is dependent on one major industry or basic commodity. We must expect in the coming months that there will be a rise in the price of basic raw materials coming to us from the Commonwealth. I think that we should welcome that because, although it makes it more difficult for us in some respects, it will help this country, since it will make it more possible for Commonwealth countries to buy our exports.
What we want to achieve for the benefit of us all is a more stable, even if


higher, price in basic commodities. At the same lime, if we in this country try to create a greater variety of industry we must always remember that variety in itself means many ups and downs. If we have variety we cannot expect a uniform level of stability in all types of industry all over the country. There are bound to be moments when some industries are flourishing, some undergoing change and some giving way to new techniques.
This is where I think that all of us—industrialists, those who work in industry and the Government—must adopt an entirely different attitude to the moving of industry and of people from one end of the country to the other. Take, for example, Canada. There people go right across the Continent for their jobs. I remember going to a mine in British Columbia which was 4,000 feet up in the mountains and where the men worked under very difficult conditions. Incidentally, they had not seen a woman for a year, and when the foreman saw me coming up the path he rushed away to shave. He was so out of practice that it had dire results. I said to one of the mine workers, "Where is your home?" He said, "My home is where I hang my hat." I think that is a perfect example of an enterprising attitude to work. Whole families are prepared to move and to change jobs, and in consequence, because they move and because other families have the same attitude to life and to work, there is mobility throughout the nation. That is healthy.
I think that the attitude of young people in industry today is not nearly so dependent on the idea that they must stay in one area. It is perhaps wise to remember that those in the south of England who are now aged 30 have lived in a period of boom, or near boom, since the age of 10. Their attitude towards industry is entirely different from that of those brought up during the 'thirties and the world-wide recession. That being so, I am certain that in Scotland young people will not be content with the cautious approach that was suited to earlier times. That is why I hope that all of us will realise that in a country which does not have direction of labour or of industry we must have a partnership between the Government, industrialists and those who work in industry.

I hope that the Government will make a determined attempt to see what they can do for Scotland as a whole.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: If I may presume to follow two hon. Ladies, my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir), who both represent Scottish constituencies, I should like to ask the Government a few questions which arise out of the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
When we debated these issues in March, the Parliamentary Secretary said that the proposals from us on this side were either misguided or worthless, and the Minister of Labour and National Service said that the Government were pursuing them already. Today the Parliamentary Secretary has veered round and seems to me to have joined the Minister of Labour. He told us today that he is doing all that we want him to do. The truth is that the Government very largely abandoned the Development Area policy in 1956, but, after prolonged pressure from the areas themselves and from hon. Members on this side, they now claim to have returned to it. I am still not altogether convinced, after the Parliamentary Secretary's speech, that this conversion is a matter of deeds as well as of words. Having listened to the brilliant and persuasive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. LI. Williams), all I want to do is to have a look at the facts and to ask the Government a number of questions which have not yet been answered.
The Parliamentry Secretary today mentioned the further light thrown on the figures of employment as opposed to unemployment which have been published today. The outstanding fact, which is the background to the whole of this discussion, is that the number of persons in civil employment in the whole of the country today is 340,000 fewer than it was last August. When the Minister of Labour told us in March that unemployment had fallen by about 50,000 between February and March, he omitted to mention that employment had also fallen by 60,000 over the same period. I cannot think that he was being particularly candid on that occasion. Anyway, the


fact is that the main reason why unemployment has fallen since February is not because people have found jobs but because they have given up looking for them. That is the plain conclusion to be drawn from the figures, and I do not think that anybody would deny it.
On the test of the facts are the Government carrying out a Development Area and distribution of industry policy, which they claim, and are they doing it vigorously, as we say in the Amendment that they should? The best single test is the percentage of new factory space going to Development Areas, on the one hand, and to the congested areas, like London, on the other. In the March debate, I gave these simple figures covering a period of years and not one or two selected years. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary denies them. In the first three years after the war, Development Areas with 15 per cent. of the population got about 45 per cent. of the factory space. During the six years from 1945 to 1951—and I emphasise this figure—the Development Areas got 30 per cent. of the factory space. But in 1958 that figure had fallen to 18 per cent..

Mr. J. Rodgers: Would the right hon. Gentleman like to give the figure for the percentage between 1948 and 1951?

Mr. Jay: Because, if I may say so, the Parliamentary Secretary has a certain tendency to bring this controversy down to a party level, I will deal with the point. The Parliamentary Secretary—I do not want to spend a lot of time on this—must be ignorant of the post-war building situation if he does not know that so many houses and factories were started in the years 1945 to 1948 that it was necessary to slow down new starts in order to complete the ones already started within a reasonable period. If the hon. Gentleman will look up any of the facts, he will see, for that reason, of course, that one or two years, such as 1948 and 1949, give a meaningless conclusion. But let us leave that aside. Let us look at 1959 and see whether there really has been a change since 1958 in the way this policy has been carried out.
The Minister of Labour and National Service told us in March—the Parliamentary Secretary, more or less, said it again today—that the policy of stricter control, more stringent control, had been

introduced last October, and we have been constantly told that at the same time there have been fewer licensings in the Development Areas since then. I should be delighted were this change of heart really genuine. I have been looking at the statistical digest in order to compare what has happened in the first three months of 1959 with the corresponding months of 1958. I gave notice of this to the Parliamentary Secretary. Incidentally, I regret that at the end of last year the Government altered the whole basis of the figures so that it is no longer possible to get the figures of building for specific Development Areas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton raised this point at Question Time and I gather that the Government here, too, have repented, and that we are to have the original figures restored. But because of this difficulty, which is not my fault, I have had to take the figures for approvals in square feet for the first three months of 1958 and the first three months of 1959, and compare, on the one hand, the London and South-Eastern Region and, on the other, the whole of Wales, Scotland and the Northern Region. Of course, the latter is not the same as the Development Area, but it was the best I could do and, naturally, I am using the same area for the two years.
We are told that there has been a great change in policy, and therefore we ought to find a great shift in the percentage of national factory building going to London, on the one hand, and to the Development Areas on the other. But according to my arithmetic—which has been much improved by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) —the figures are as follows. In the first three months of 1958 London got 15·8 per cent. of the national total, and in the first three months of 1959—after this great change of policy—it got 15·8 per cent. again. The three Development Area regions got 22.6 per cent. of the national total in the first three months of 1958, and in 1959 they got 22·7 per cent. In spite of the help which I received from my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, I do not press the matter of the difference of 0·1 per cent. But, on the figures, it looks so far as though there has been no change at all. If this be so, it is a little disturbing, and I hope that we shall be told that the figures are not really quite so bad as that.
The second test of a Development Area policy, I think, is how many factories are actually being built in the Development Areas and, of course, in other areas where the unemployment figures are high. The Parliamentary Secretary, obviously having in mind Government-financed factory building and Government spending, said there must be some limit, and so forth. But I wish the hon. Gentleman would think of this matter as it really is, as investment and not spending in the ordinary sense of the term. This is public investment in revenue-earning productive assets in these areas. That is the way in which the hon. Gentleman should regard it.
We all know that the building of Government-financed factories in the areas fell heavily in 1957 and 1958. Lord Bilsland has told the story, and so I do not have to. Incidentally, the total approvals for Development Areas fell from about 14 million sq. ft. in 1957 to 8 million sq. ft. in 1958 and clearly, therefore, Government-financed building fell very heavily at that time. Pressure has continually been brought to bear on the Government and now they claim to have resumed building, particularly Government-financed factories. But after the experience of the last few years, we should like to have proof of this, actual concrete proof.
Replying last week to a Question from me, the President of the Board of Trade gave some figures, and we have heard similar figures today from the Parliamentary Secretary. We were told that in the present year 52 Government schemes have been approved compared with seven last year which, incidentally, is a melancholy comment on what was happening last year in the Development Areas. We were also told of 81 private schemes this year compared with 86 last year. I agree that the President added—this is more important—that the total number to be employed involved in both sets of schemes together had risen from 6,300 to 14,000. That is somewhat more reassuring, compared with the lamentable record of 1958. But, even so, the figures for private schemes are not nearly so reassuring and there appears to have been little revival in that direction.
I wish to ask the Minister, although the areas are not quite the same, how exactly these figures are to be reconciled

with the figures I quoted from the Digest. If the percentage of approvals in Development Areas is only the same this year as last, and if the volume of employment, according to the President of the Board of Trade, is something like double, is it the fact that there has been merely a revival of factory building in Development Areas this year which is proportionate to that going on in the rest of the country? Is that the explanation of these two different sets of figures?
I shall be glad to have figures for new factory building this year in the very severely hit part of the Development Areas, like, for instance, South-West Wales. Cannot the Parliamentary Secretary, even now, tell us that approval has been given to the Huntley and Palmer scheme at Huyton which was held up by the Government for many months last winter, and about which in neither debate have we been given a firm answer?

Mr. J. Rodgers: It has not been held up. There was negotiation about what rent should be paid and whether the firm should itself build or whether we should build it an extension. This was settled some weeks ago.

Mr. Jay: I am glad to hear that. It has taken some six months of pressure from a great number of people.
Before we are really convinced that the Government have been converted, even in the matter of Government-financed building schemes, I should like to ask the Minister three questions. First, have the Government "come clean" on this administrative rescheduling, which I think has been one of the real mistakes of the last two years? There have been certain parts of the Development Areas where the Government have ceased building Government-financed factories altogether. Several times the President of the Board of Trade—the Parliamentary Secretary did it again today—has quoted certain parts of the Development Areas where the Government are willing to build Government-financed factories. When we have asked whether this means that they are not willing to build them in other areas, the right hon. Gentleman has never given anything like a complete answer. I should like to be assured, and the hon. Gentleman should give us an assurance if he wishes to convince us of his sincerity, that


this ban has been completely removed and that the Government are willing to build in any part of the Development Areas. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to note this point.
Of course, I agree with him that if a firm is willing to build, or have a factory built for it, either in Newport or in Swansea, it is better that the factory should go to Swansea. There may, however, be another firm which would put its factory either in London or Newport only. In that case it is better that it should go to Newport than that it should be built in London. Therefore, there has to be some judgment and flexibility in all this, and there is no case for having an absolute ban on any parts of Development Areas. It would help us to believe in the hon. Gentleman's conversion if he could tell us that that ban had been completely removed.

Mr. J. Rodgers: As I have explained on previous occasions, there is no ban on the erection by the Government of factory buildings in Development Areas. What we have done is to give priority to certain areas at this time—I enumerated them again today—because we believe they are in more desperate need than other parts. Therefore, we are not building factories in those other parts, but we have not abandoned factory building in those other parts.

Mr. Jay: May we take it, then, that the Government are prepared to examine applications for Government-financed building anywhere in the present Development Areas? Do I take it that that is so? The Parliamentary Secretary does not altogether give a straight answer when one poses a question to him. I say to him again that if he would give us a straight answer to that one, we should be even more convinced of his sincerity.
Secondly, can we have an assurance—I think this is even more important—that there will be no more of this effort to sell existing Government-financed factories to firms which do not wish to buy them? It is quite possible that there may be good reason, in some cases where a firm wishes to buy a factory, for the Government deciding to sell it, but to attempt to force a firm such as Huntley & Palmer to buy it, when it is unwilling to do so, is about the most foolish of all the Government's aberrations in these last three years. For this reason, and I hope that

the Parliamentary Secretary will grasp it, if a Government-financed factory goes out of Government ownership and into private ownership, then thus far the Government lose control of employment policy in the area, because the firm may at a later date decide to sell it or use it for storage. Although it was originally built with public money, it can no longer be controlled, although that was the reason for using public money in the first instance. I hope that if the Parliamentary Secretary cannot answer that one yet, the Minister will very soon do so.
Thirdly, on this part of the argument, can we now be assured that the Government have completely abandoned the absurd condition that they would only go forward with Government-financed factories which would be completed by 31st October, 1959? It is quite obvious that if this is still in force no more Government-financed schemes can start at all. We assume that it is not in force, but we have not been fairly and squarely told so, and it would alleviate some of our anxieties if we could be told that tonight.
Next, on Section 3 of the 1945 Act, which relates to basic services, which is the direct concern of the Minister of Housing and Local Government who is to reply to the debate, can he tell us tonight that the Government have now abandoned the absurd condition that Section 3 even now can be used only in the case of schemes covering water and sewerage, and excluding transport, roads, and all the other services for which this was originally intended? Can he also assure us that applications will now be eligible from the whole of the Development Areas and free of these limiting conditions as was implied in the Government's original repentance on this issue back in March?
The Minister gave me a reply last week at Question Time on this matter which rather implied that he was disappointed with the number of applications that he had had from local authorities for grants under Section 3. But, of course, the reason for this is that road and transport schemes are far the most important among those which those areas want to carry out, and at present they are entirely excluded from the list. There is really no doubt, whether we go to South-West Wales, North Wales, or Tyneside, where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) said, the Tyne Tunnel and


approach roads are still, apparently, held up and not started, that the schemes which local authorities most want to start are in the sphere of transport, and particularly of road building. Is the Minister prepared to say tonight that on Section 3 the Government will examine favourably any schemes which come under the definition as it was in that part of the 1945 Act?
Next, on derelict sites, to which the hon. Gentleman himself referred, I should like to say this. I think we cleared up that he is not now suddenly introducing a new condition. I gather they have either to be ownerless or derelict. That sounds a little less restrictive.
However, it is extremely disappointing, frankly, to have a reply from the President of the Board of Trade on 7th May confirmed today by the Parliamentary Secretary that no single scheme for the clearance of derelict sites has yet been approved. gather that there have been 50 applications since the Government gave way on this point three months ago. It is disappointing that nothing has been approved to date. Why this delay, and why is it that it has taken so long to approve any thing?
I urge the Government to press on here with the utmost energy. I hope we shall be told in particular that some of the notorious cases like the Landore Valley, Swansea, and some of the hundreds of acres of derelict land at Wrexham and in Lanarkshire are to be tackled at last under the Government's present scheme. If this part of the job is not to be tackled in that spirit, then I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is not a serious division between us over these issues.
The hon. Gentleman and others have referred to D. A. T. A. C., and we have been given some figures. We had the same ones from the Parliamentary Secretary today as were given to me in an Answer to a Question last week, which are, I think, extremely disappointing, and measure the consequences of the 1958 Act. When the 1958 Measure was published and was debated on Second Reading we on this side of the House said that, though we were all in favour of the use of D. A. T. A. C. and the extension of D. A. T. A. C., we believed it could make only a small contribution to the whole unemployment problem of these areas. It always takes the Government another

year to learn these lessons, and I can only hope that they have learned this one, for the figures published today confirm what we said.
Ten months after the enactment of the Act the schemes approved provide only 1,700 extra jobs in the whole country. It is 1,700 jobs against 500,000 people unemployed. What the Parliamentary Secretary did not mention was that some part of that 1,700 would have occurred anyway, under D. A. T. A. C.'s ordinary operations, if the new Act had not been passed. Therefore, the new Act to date, although we are in favour of it for what it is worth, has provided only a few hundred jobs against a total unemployment of 500,000.
I just add this about D. A. T. A. C. Although it is normally the rule that the Government do not interfere with the detailed working of D. A. T. A. C. or take a view about the merits of particular schemes, I think it is within the terms of the 1945 Act that the Government can intimate to D. A. T. A. C. in general that they want it to be forthcoming, to take a reasonably liberal view of applications and to make the utmost use of its powers. I do not think that that, as my Scottish Friends would say, would be outwith the proper rules of order in this case. Here one's mind at once turns to the graving dock scheme on the Clyde which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. As here it is not questioned that the attitude of D. A. T. A. C. is absolutely decisive, I hope that we shall have some positive announcement about that before very long.
I will not make any long reference to Anglesey, because my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) will speak later. But Anglesey is a case where the Government held out D. A. T. A. C. as very largely the solution of the problem, and they gave this as a reason for not including Anglesey in the Development Areas. But, in the whole ten months since the Act has been in force, every application from Anglesey has been turned down, as far as I know. That is why we cannot rely on D. A. T. A. C. alone.
On these points, which I have travelled over rather rapidly, we believe that the Government should act more vigorously than they have done so far. But I want to mention two other steps which we believe


they should take. Again, I should be delighted if this process of conversion has gone quickly enough for them to announce acceptance of these suggestions tonight. It seems to us that the programme of only three advance factories now to be built is hopelessly inadequate. Not a single one is to go to the whole of South Wales, not merely the whole of South-West Wales. In particular, the failure at this stage to build a factory on the Fforestfach Estate is absolutely deplorable. Here is an estate laid out with public money fifteen years ago, with all services laid on and with sites ready for twenty to thirty new factories in the worst area, within reach of Swansea, Llanelly, Gorseinion and Pontardawe. It seems extraordinary to have a programme of advance factories and not to put one of them in that area even when the sites are ready. We have been told that care must be taken about standard factories because there is a danger of getting them left on our hands untenanted, but is it not true that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) suggested, that the Coatbridge factory has found a tenant almost before building has started? We should like to know.
I should like to put this point to the Parliamentary Secretary in the light of what several hon. Members have said about the question of American firms coming to this country or being tempted to the Common Market. Is it not actual experience that the presence of an advance factory is a considerable bait to firms from America as well as firms in this country? I believe that if we looked at the records we should find that to be so.
Has any announcement been made yet as to where exactly the advance factory on Merseyside is to be placed? A look back over the history of the Development Area effort will show that the Birkenhead part of the Merseyside Development Area has not been very well treated throughout the whole story.

Mr. Collick: It has been shockingly badly treated.

Mr. Jay: The Birkenhead area has not a single industrial estate and it has great claims to an advance factory at the present time. As the other side of the

river also has a claim, this is further evidence that three factories for the whole of the country are quite insufficient.
Secondly, and as my last practical proposal to the Parliamentary Secretary, I must say that we on his side of the House believe that the Development Area boundaries should now be widely extended, particularly in Wales, Scotland and Lancashire. I gave reasons in the debate on this subject last March why the last ten years' experience has shown that the boundaries should be more widely drawn. On that occasion, the Parliamentary Secretary in reply quoted from a White Paper of 1948, which was at the beginning of the ten-year period, giving the Government's reasons against such an extension. But my argument is that the experience of the last ten years has shown that that view is no longer valid. I urge the Government to learn, like us, from experience in these practical matters.
I will tell the Parliamentary Secretary quite frankly the reasons why I think that the intervening ten years have shown that wider scheduling is desirable. I entirely agree with the noble Lady the Member for Aberdeenshire, South that this argument about spreading the jam too thinly is completely false. There is not a limited amount of energy and resources which must be put in one area or another. The volume of energy and investment should be appropriate to the need all over the country.
Experience over ten years of this experiment has shown that the Development Area policy has demonstrably succeeded in certain of the worst-hit of the old areas. It has shown that the job can be done. Tees-side is an example of that. We have seen that other methods have failed in areas outside these boundaries, for instance, in North Wales and Anglesey, where other attempts to tackle the problem have unquestionably failed and the last ten months have shown that D. A. T. A. C. itself cannot tackle it.
Thirdly, we realise now, what I frankly did not fully realise in 1948, that in the rural areas, because of the mechanisation of agriculture, if new industry is not brought in on a large scale and if there is no big increase in food production, depopulation must go on. It is absolutely inescapable that that must happen.


This is the lesson for large parts of Wales and Scotland, and this is why we should go ahead and try much wider scheduling.
Fourthly, we are now facing in both the cotton and the coal industries what looks like a major industrial, social and human readjustment. I wish that the Government would understand that this problem which we shall be facing in coal and cotton is essentially a geographical problem and therefore a problem of the distribution of industry. The simple fact is that if people lose their jobs because a mill or a pit closes down and if there is alternative work available within travelling distance, there is no irretrievable tragedy. But if there are no such jobs in the area there is tragedy, and a quite unnecessary tragedy which can be avoided, as the distribution of industry policy has shown, by foresight and intelligence, as has happened in certain areas. The decline of the Cleveland ore mines, for instance, has produced no problem because of the development of I.C.I. and other industry on Tees-side. This shows that the problem can be solved if it is tackled vigorously enough.
The Government's present policy for cotton, as announced in the last week or two, seems half a policy as it stands. Mills are to be closed and workers displaced, but there is no guarantee that new work will be brought to the right places at the right times to provide alternative employment. There is all too much reason to believe that a very big readjustment of this kind may face us in the coal industry before long, notably in Scotland, Wales and on the North-East coast.
This is not just a matter of giving aid to hard-hit areas but, as Mr. Ernest Bevin always looked at it, a matter of the distribution of industry over the whole country. I wish that the Government would try to foresee and make up their mind now whether labour will be released in these areas and at what time, in order that there may be a plan well in advance to ensure that alternative work is available. What we want is not just a policy for cotton but a plan for these industrial areas, not a policy for coal but a plan to ensure that one part of a change is interrelated with another. With foresight, knowledge and energy, I believe that can be done. If it is to be done, there will be far more resources in the hands of the public authorities if the whole of these

areas, and, above all, the greater part, if not the whole, of industrial Lancashire and Cheshire, are brought within the ambit of full Development Area powers. Until the Government are ready to do that, I am not fully convinced that they are tackling this problem as vigorously as it could be tackled.
I urge the Ministers to think again quickly about all these matters and to act far more vigorously than they are doing at present. I welcome the conversion of the Parliamentary Secretary at least to a mood in which he says he is trying to do what we are asking him to do. If he will give proof of that by giving positive answers to all these questions, we shall be delighted, but if he cannot do that, I hope that my hon. Friends will urge him on to further conversion by voting in favour of this Amendment tonight.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. James Dance: I have listened with very great interest to nearly all the speeches in this debate and in particular to the speech of the hon. Gentleman for Abertillery (the Rev. Ll. Williams). I agreed with much of what he said especially when he referred to the conurbation problem.
I feel certain that the Government's proposals to encourage new industries to be set up in areas where there is unemployment which is greater than the average for the country as a whole will commend themselves to hon. Members on both sides of the House and to people outside this House. I am certain that we shall all support the Board of Trade in the granting of industrial development certificates to further this end. I wish, however, to give a word of warning, with due respect, in the hope that these applications will be granted only to areas which really need this help and which through no fault of their own, but merely through what may be some change in user consumer demands or other reasons, have unemployment which is above the average.
At the moment there is a scheme afoot to extend the boundaries of the City of Birmingham, to take over 2,432 acres of the green belt, to build some 40,000 houses and to develop industrial centres there. Of that land, 1,880 acres are in my constituency in Worcestershire and 624 acres are in the neighbouring one of


Warwickshire at Solihull. I should like to confine my remarks to my own part of the world round the Wythall which I know best, but I feel certain that similar problems and schemes exist throughout the country.
Most of this is fine agricultural land. It is not back gardens and chicken runs, but good open agricultural land which at present is producing milk, fattening cattle and growing good crops. It would be a terrible thing if this land were unnecessarily—and I hope to show that it would be unnecessarily—taken away from agriculture.
In addition, this land is part of the green belt. I believe that the green belt should be sacrosanct. What is the point in one day setting up a green belt and then later allowing schemes of this magnitude to encroach on to the land? We must bear in mind that the people in that green belt who own their own property find it difficult to get permission to build garages, etc. If they cannot do that, it is surely entirely wrong to allow these schemes to burst into the green belt from the cities.
In addition to the considerations of agriculture and the green belt, there is the social aspect which we should take into account. People have of their own will and on their own initiative moved from cities and towns into the green belt because they wanted to go into open spaces and because they felt that it would be safe to go there and that they would be left alone. They have bought properties for which they may have paid quite a lot. I know that it may be a selfish attitude to take, but it is perfectly true to say that were these great building schemes of factories and of 40,000 houses to be brought there, the value of their land would undoubtedly fall. I think that would be a very great pity.
Above all, there is a community feeling which has grown up over many years in this type of area and I think that it would be disastrous if that were killed. In addition, I believe that the people who go there, many of whom will be forcibly removed from their own cities, will be very unhappy and will seize the first opportunity, if development takes place in the cities from which they came, to go back to them. During the war when the blitz was on Coventry we housed people from Coventry in our village. It is not a

remote village; it is a large village. It had good shops in it and several pubs. Yet, after a few weeks, these people decided to go back to Coventry. They would rather face the bombing than be away from their own kith and kin and the place where they had their roots.
It is perfectly true that there are many people in these cities who need housing or, in some cases, rehousing. We must face that fact. It would be inhuman not to do so. Having spoken to those citizens who know the City of Birmingham intimately, I am convinced that the major portion of this housing problem could be dealt with by Birmingham within the confines of that city. There may have to be minor schemes in this connection, but do not let us forget that people are at present, and have been for some time, moving out of their own free will. I think that that process will continue.
Certainly, we must do something to help to house these people, but I am convinced that in the City of Birmingham, and no doubt in other places, the problem could be dealt with largely within their own cities. Therefore, I implore my right hon. Friend to see that when these certificates are being issued they go to places where they are really needed. For many years now the part of the country to which I am referring has fortunately had virtually full employment. Therefore, if these schemes of industrial development are to be worth while, I hope that they will not be allowed to encroach into the green belt but that they will be taken to places where they will give benefit, where the workers will be given good jobs and where they will really be welcome.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. William Ainsley: I welcome the opportunity of expressing the hopes and the fears of the people in the North-East. During an Adjournment debate a month ago, I referred to it as that part of the country which is often forgotten and neglected by this Government, whether it be in industry or in the social services. The reply I received from the Parliamentary Secretary on that occasion reveals the attitude and approach of the Government to these problems.
It is rather strange, when we examine the present position, to find that it is following almost the same pattern as in the


'thirties, when many of us experienced the hardship and the cruelty of being not wanted in society. If we examine our heavy industries, we find exactly the same pattern reappearing today in shipbuilding, ship-repairing, iron and steel, coal and quarrying. We are faced with this problem because of the Government's policy of freedom.
I recall that during the war research was undertaken on our mineral wealth in order to exploit to the full our natural resources, and a report was published in 1948. I was advised of that report by the Lord President of the Council, and when I examined it I found that it referred to my own area. Following that report, during the last few months the Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Research has published a survey on my constituency in which reference is made to its natural wealth. The question I want to put to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade is, how far are the Government prepared to give financial aid for boring and for further exploiting this natural wealth?
I have put repeated questions to the Government and have been told, "You are not in a D. A. T. A. C. area". Yet we are in a Development Area. If we follow the pattern of Development Areas since the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, we find that some progress was made under the Labour Government and that in the two succeeding years the Tory Administration reaped the benefit of that Act. Yet, when I approach the President of the Board of Trade, either when on a deputation or by a personal interview, I am told, "We cannot direct industry to those areas".
Let us examine the position. For miners their employment is limited, since the mine may close and, although the Government cannot direct industry, economic pressure may move the miners into other areas. Therefore, in our national economy a mining community is an economic unit and the Government have some responsibility for the dilemma of the National Coal Board. We know that the Government have never looked favourably on any nationalised industry. Even now, Mr. Hurry is going round asking the question, "Do you wish for more nationalisation?" This question is a subtle one, because the present Government are deliberately creating an

economic position which prevents our nationalised, basic industries from functioning successfully.
The coal industry needs the Minister of Power to accept responsibility for carrying on the national services in the interests of our national economy, but the belief in competition is bringing more distress to the special areas, as is shown by the following figures for my own county. In September, 1957, the total number of unemployed was 9,697. In December it went up to about 11,000, in March, 1958, to 14,000, in June to 15,000, in September to 17,000 and in December to 21,497. That is a creeping paralysis which is attacking the Development Areas in which are our basic industries. This Government, relying upon the Cohen Report, have deliberately created unemployment, which is growing like a snowball and is creating the problem they cannot control.
Let us take note of what the Paymaster-General said in our recent debate on mining. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Government would close no more pits this year. That sounds so nice, does it not, to the general public, but what does it mean? It means that things will go on as they are until the election and immediately afterwards, the problem will have to be faced by the next Government. We cannot continue to produce and stack coal unless there is a market for it. That is the problem facing the mining industry in my constituency.
This weekend a brickworks is closing in my constituency. Is there no need of bricks? We have bricklayers idle, we have joiners and carpenters idle. People need homes, we need schools we need hospitals. If the Government wish to extend the economy of this country, they can do so, but they do not want to do it. Their policy is unemployment so that they can control the worker in industry. I have had some of it, so I know what I am talking about. I have been told, "If you will not do it, there is a man in the unemployment queue who will come and take your job". That has been Tory policy over and over again. Let the Government reveal what they intend to do to meet the growing problem of unemployment, of recognising human values, of looking after young people leaving school, instead of talking about introducing


whipping and flogging to deal with juvenile delinquency. That is the mentality of the people sitting on the Government benches.
There is a school in my constituency from which 1,000 young people will soon be coming on to the employment market. There is no work available for them. If the Ministry of Labour cannot provide them with work, the Ministry of Education must accept some financial responsibility and keep these young people at school.
The Board of Trade is not prepared to help industry. I have pointed out a factory that is standing idle in my area. It is not in a D. A. T. A. C. area, yet we have a figure of 8.6 for juvenile unemployment. The Government will not give financial assistance to make use of this factory so that the talents of these young people can be put into the right channels and they can become useful citizens.
These are the human problems that we have faced all our lives. We know about human depredations, but until we get a change of society and place man in his rightful place, these problems will continue. May the time speedily come when the answer will be given to the Government which, with all their financial resources and backing, their record from 1951 to date and the way that they have handled the nation's affairs has brought us from the vanguard that we were in for generations down to a second rate nation today.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Robert Mathew: I wish to draw the attention of the House to a very different area from that mentioned by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Ainsley). I should like to echo the words of the Parliamentary Secretary and stress that this is a problem which must be taken out of party politics. When one listens to some hon. Members opposite—in particular to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Ferny-hough), to whom I always listen with close attention, sympathy and respect, and to the hon. Member for Durham, North-West—one sees all the ghosts of the dark days of 1929 to 1931 being evoked in debate after debate over the years. When one listens to hon. Gentlemen opposite one would not recognise what the employment and economic

situation is now. Any stranger coming into the House would not believe that the rate of unemployment is 2.4 per cent. of the working population.

Mr. Hayman: Might I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if he had lived in an area of high unemployment where one-third of the working population was out of work he would feel that the high unemployment in local areas of the country today is frightening in the extreme?

Mr. Mathew: The hon. Gentleman's intervention is hardly relevant to what I was saying. I was dealing with the national position as reflected in the speeches of hon. Members opposite. I have intervened to deal with the problem envisaged in the Amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Abertillery (The Rev. Ll. Williams). The problems we are concerned with are the pockets of unemployment throughout the country. I object to the debate being made a party forum for hon. Members opposite to bring out the speeches which they have been making for the last thirty years.
The problem to which I want to draw attention is that of the Development Areas in the south-west of England. It may come as a surprise to some hon. Members who think of Devon and Cornwall as tourist areas, as pleasant places in which to spend a holiday and as very pleasant places to retire to, that there are a number of Development Areas in both counties.
This problem does not arise from the same causes as those which apply in a number of areas to which hon. Members have referred. The reasons are, to a large extent, historical. The latest details for the two counties showed an unemployment figure of 5 per cent. in April, and during the deep winter months it rises higher. This battle of unemployment goes back many years. It is a deep-lying social problem. Historically the area has an economy based on the great traditional industry of agriculture but in the towns, and especially the seaside resorts —and I represent these areas together with a number of other hon. Members—it is based on the tourist and holiday industry.
Before the Industrial Revolution there was a much more balanced economy in the West. In the small towns one had


industry side by side with agriculture. There was no coal in the West, and when the Industrial Revolution came industry was concentrated in great units in what the hon. Member for Abertillery referred to as the absurd concentration of industries in the large congested areas, and the small industries in the towns of the West fell by the wayside with the march of progress.
In the smaller towns in the West today there is a certain unbalance in the economy. This is not caused by the same factors which have caused the difficulties which are occurring in the industrial areas that have pockets of unemployment-Such things as a major change in the industrial direction of the nation, where we as a great trading nation have to change the direction of the impact of our manufacturing effort, do not affect the West directly.
The general redeployment of industry, a problem to which hon. Members have referred, does not affect us so much. Indeed, the general world trend has not quite such a direct impact on the economy in the south-west of England. I am speaking of the smaller towns where in recent years employment has not been so easy to obtain, even in periods of very full employment in the rest of the country. The reasons for this are, as I say, partly historic and partly that in the towns, and especially in the seaside towns, the main industry is the hotel and catering industry, which is essentially seasonal.
Taking the town of Exmouth, in my constituency. which since January has been scheduled as a D. A. T. A. C. area, and comparing the unemployment figure in April of last year with that in August of last year—that is to say, comparing the last month before the beginning of the holiday season with the peak of the holiday season—there was a fall of 1.7 per cent. in registered unemployed. That has been the situation throughout the years. We have this differential caused by the simple fact that the holiday industry is seasonal.
The next reason for our problems is, I suggest, that the area is extremely pleasant, with lovely countryside and a good climate, and we are very happy in the South-West to welcome large numbers of people who, having completed their working lives, come to live amongst

us in their retirement. The problem is that the families and children of these people have little choice of employment. They must either go into the countryside, as we hope they will, and enter agriculture, or, as more of them do, unhappily, they must go to other parts of the country where there is a greater diversification of jobs.
The inevitable result is that there is a tendency for the average age in many of the towns in that area to increase year by year. The picture of the age of the population, especially in some of these resorts, is very clearly presented by drawing a graph comparing the figures from the 1921 census with those in the 1951 census. The shape that one gets on the graph is like an hour glass. That is to say, there is a broad base representing the young people under 15 years of age still at school, and then there is an increasingly slender and elegant waist representing those who have remained in the towns during their working years. Then there is a top-heavy bulbous head —the top of the hour glass—which represents those who have retired at 60 or 65 and upwards.
This is not a healthy tendency for any community. The basic need is for more diversification and for the introduction of light industry. This is clearly not an area for large industrial units or anything in the nature of heavy industry. But the need for diversification is very urgent, and I submit that it arises from reasons rather different from those which apply to other areas which have their own peculiar problems and which require industry of all kinds.
The Board of Trade has now recognised the need that exists in Exmouth, in my own division of Honiton, and a number of other centres in Devon and Cornwall. A number of people in the areas who are concerned with this problem are very grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary who, at the end of January, came down on a tour. He met representatives of all the areas, he held meetings with trade union leaders, and he informed himself of the specific problems of the area. I have heard a number of complimentary remarks from all types of people, who are most grateful to him for explaining the intricacies of the D. A. T. A. C. procedure and its possibilities for the area. A great deal of clarification resulted.
Since January a number of applications for assistance have been made in my own area from the D. A. T. A. C. committee. The results of the applications are still anxiously awaited. I understand that the total number of eligible applications for East and South Devon amounted to twenty, of which one has been approved so far and fifteen are still being considered. I would express the hope that the outcome will be fruitful and, above all, will be not too long delayed. In the whole of the two counties, certificates have been given during the eight months from August last until March to twelve factories or extensions. The twelve projects now amount to 122,000 sq. ft. That is progress in the right direction.
I would direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the particular needs of East and South Devon. A number of firms have started up in that area on their own and there have been satisfactory expansions in the last two years. I had the pleasure fairly recently of opening two new bays in an electronic works at Ottery St. Mary. Hon. Members who know the place will be aware that it is not at first sight a likely place for an important electronics industry, but this has been a very great success and has prospered. All those who were responsible for it, and other people who have started up light industries similarly, are very satisfied. I have always had the same reply that they are gratified at having moved into an area usually more associated with summer holidays than with light industry. They speak extremely well of the quality of the labour in what is really a rural area, and of the amenities which are available.
I stress these points, since the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned in passing about firms being reluctant to move to certain areas in the country. He mentioned Cornwall among other places. I would remark, in the presence of the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman), that I do not think there is the same reluctance on the part of firms to move to East Devon that there is to move to Cornwall.
The trouble about the specific problems of seaside resorts is that there is a short summer season. Many places in the West should have a very much longer summer season. Some, like Sidmouth, in the

urban district of which I live, are admirable winter resorts, and have been so for many years. The summer season is being gradually extended, and I submit to the Board of Trade that a nation-wide effort should be made to spread holidays over a longer period. It would confer many advantages on all concerned, including the holidaymakers themselves, on the economy of the country, and, not least, o n those who are working in the tourist industry, which is thoroughly overloaded during the peak months in all these resorts.
Here is one of the greatest of our foreign currency earners. I hope that, in winding up the debate, my hon. Friend can tell us some of the details of the help which is specifically available to the tourist industry under the D. A. T. A. C. procedure for hotels, for re-equipping hotels, building new hotels, for catering establishments and other tourist attractions ancillary to this industry. It is important that this industry, which suffers to a large extent from certain elements in the tax structure of the country, but which is doing a first-rate job in bringing dollars and other foreign currency to the country, should be given every encouragement. Everything should be done to attract fresh capital.
In conclusion, I express the hope that the Government, in speeding help to the Development Areas in the West of England and above all by attracting light industry to those areas where it will be very much welcomed, will always remember that this is a long-term problem arising partly from the historic reasons I have mentioned, which are basically different from the difficulties in some industrial areas of which we have heard in this debate. It is absolutely essential that the unbalance which has arisen in the economy of the smaller towns on the West of England should be set right so that young people do not drift from home as soon as their school days are over. I say to the young, enterprising industrialist, perhaps setting up a small-scale new industry and looking for a suitable site and location, "Look West, young man" because that is where there is a future for industry which there has not been perhaps for 150 years.

8.42 p.m.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: The hon. Member for Honiton


(Mr. Mathew) has complained that he has had to listen to the same speeches on unemployment from this side of the House for many years. I am afraid that he will have to go on listening to speeches on unemployment while the problem lasts. I may also tell him that we on this side of the House have had to listen to the same speeches on unemployment from his side of the House, speeches telling us that the problem is not nearly so serious as we make it out to be, speeches telling us that the Conservative Government of the day are doing everything that is possible to be done.
We heard one of those speeches today from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and a very disappointing speech it was. It showed how pathetically, how tragically inadequate the policy of the Government is to deal with the problem of the Development Areas. It reflected far more accurately the policy of the Government than the very skilful and dexterous juggling of figures we had from the Minister of Labour a few weeks ago. The Parliamentary Secretary said he would throw himself on the mercy of the House. If he cannot do better than that, I warn him that he will get no mercy and no quarter from this side of the House.
The Parliamentary Secretary dealt with the technological changes and more or less said they were the main cause of the present situation. Of course, nobody wants the clock to be put back. All we want is intelligent anticipation. These developments are well known, or if they are not, they should be well known, to the Government — such developments, for instance, as in the steel and tinplate industries in South West Wales and other parts of the country, and in the coal industry. The way in which the Government mishandled the situation in the coal industry gives us no confidence at all that we shall get from them much intelligent anticipation in the matter of technological changes. This is vital for the Development Areas, because coal is still the most important common denominator to all these Development Areas in Scotland, the North of England and Wales. If the Government have not thought about this problem until now, we ask them to do so before further mines are closed and more miners become redundant.
Government spokesmen try to make out that there is no radical difference between the Government's policy and that of the Labour Party. In fact there is all the difference in the world. First—and it cannot be said too often—we must not forget that the Government virtually abandoned the Distribution of Industry Acts for two years. The Government have given us figures which show that the average yearly factory building from 1951 until now was £4 million a year. If that is so, then their suspension of the Distribution of Industry Acts means that over £8 million of Government factory building which could have taken place in this country has not taken place.
The Government have had a change of policy and a change of heart, and they have now brought the Acts out of cold storage. Do they intend to make greater use of their provisions? From what we have heard in the debate today we realise that they are not making full use of these provisions. They keep telling us about the difficulties. The Government tell us, "We cannot use compulsion. We cannot compel industries to go into the Development Areas." The fact remains that since 1945 350 new industries have gone into Wales, and a larger proportion of them were steered there under the Distribution of Industry Acts. There was no compulsion, no direction of labour and no direction of industries. Yet these industries were steered into Wales, as others were steered into other Development Areas. We say to the Government, "Now that you have brought the Acts out of cold storage, make full use of them. First of all, use the negative power, which is a formidable power."
We had some interesting figures this afternoon from my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), who told us that in the first three months of 1958 the amount of industrial building in the London area was 15.8 per cent. of the national total and that in the first three months of 1959, after this great change of policy, it was again 15.8 per cent. In other words, there was exactly the same amount of industrial building in the London area. For the Development Areas, into which the Government were to steer industries, the figure for the first three months of 1958 was 22.6 per cent., and for the first three months of this year it was 22.7 per cent. That is


the measure of the success of the Government's policy.
I am glad to see the Minister of Labour on the Government Front Bench. A few weeks ago he said that virtually no authority is given in the Greater London area for a "purely new factory". Yet the figures for the first three months of 1959 are exactly the same as for the first three months of 1958–15.8 per cent. I hope that we shall have some explanation of that later in the debate. What is a "purely new factory"? No light has been thrown on that in the debate. It is time that we had a more precise definition. The right hon. Gentleman said that extensions are quite a different matter and are in a different category. Are all the new developments which have taken place in London regarded as extensions? Or are they "purely new factories "? When is an extension not an extension? May we have some information on that tonight? Was the factory of British Nylon Spinners in Gloucester an extension or a "purely new factory"? It seems to me that one could drive a bulldozer through the Government's definition of "extensions" and "purely new factories".
It was very interesting to note when the Parliamentary Secretary spoke today that he has changed his tune considerably. He patted himself on the back all through Wales. He made himself dizzy in the process. He was so carried away by the exuberance of his own verbosity that he said that Wales might soon be embarrassed by industrial development. We have felt no embarrassment up to date.
The Government claim that they will provide substantial employment in Wales. They say that they will produce 11,000 new jobs. How many of those new jobs will be West of Swansea? That is the most intractable area in South Wales at present. I do not speak of North Wales, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) will speak later. We have heard of Pressed Steel going to Swansea, and we are delighted about that What other projects are coming? Are there any projects in the Amman Valley, for instance, where the life of the whole community is threatened by the closure of the pits as well as by closures in the tinplate industry?
We on this side of the House ask the Government to tell us what new building projects they propose in the

Development Areas. This is a considerable inducement, because industrialists do not want to have to tie their money up in bricks and mortar; they would far rather put their capital into plant and machinery. Therefore, it is far better for industrialists to be able to rent factories than to purchase them.
As far as I can make out, there are to be three advance factories: one in Wales, one in Scotland and one in England—not one in South Wales. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North specifically asked whether the Government were lifting the ban on factories in other Development Areas. The Parliamentary Secretary did not seem to be very clear whether that ban had been lifted. I am very glad to see that the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs will reply to this debate, and I hope that he will tell us something about it.
I want to raise a point about Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act, which gives power to make grants to local authorities for special services. Loans, I understand, were originally meant to be for roads, water, power, light, heating, housing and health services. Now the schemes are to be confined to water and sewage. What has happened to all the other services for which originally loans were to be made under Section 3? Are there no loans or grants to be made for these services? It is absolutely essential to include roads in this category for special grants.
I know that the Government tell local authorities that they are free to go ahead with road schemes, and that the Government will give them sanction, but not much in the way of loan. In point of fact, in Carmarthen out of seventeen grant schemes for road improvement which have been put forward five have been approved, which means that we have had about £26,000 out of a possible total of £140,000. If that is the scale upon which approval is to be given, it will not get us very far.
This is not a question simply of making work. These schemes are a form of national investment. All these services are vital. When, in the 'thirties, we asked the Tory Government of the day for works of national development, we were told, "You are asking us to make holes and then fill them up again." Well,


there are quite a number of holes in our roads now that could do with filling up. This is an echo of the past. It is an echo of the same old attitude.
Let the Government use the powers they have. Let them use the negative powers. Let them approach this problem with a new drive, and a new sense of decision and purpose, and let them approach it with a new spirit to bring new hope to these people who have lived long enough under the shadow of unemployment.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Ainsley) referred to the policies now being initiated by the Government as being similar to those of the 'thirties. Late, he spoke of an attempt on the part of the Government deliberately to create unemployment. The hon. Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) has taken a similar, though less extreme, line. I do not propose to apply my strictures deliberately and directly to her, though I will to the hon. Member for Durham, North-West.
I regret that the hon. Member is not here—since he was so provocative—but I say that he was speaking not only arrant nonsense but was being deliberately wicked about this as well, and I will adduce certain reasons for saying that. I would recall, as he and other hon. Members opposite have recalled, the period of the 'thirties—except that I would amend that. and start from 1929 onwards—

Mr. Gordon Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is a reference to the speech of an hon. Member as being "deliberately wicked" in order?

Mr. Deputy - Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): I think that the expression "wicked" should be withdrawn.

Mr. Williams: Then I will withdraw the words "deliberately wicked", and, instead, say that the speech was mischievous in the political sense and extreme in its tone.
If we are considering the position between the wars, we can do it realistically and reasonably from 1929

onwards. Those of us on this side who are younger need to bear a special responsibility and thought for the past, and to remember the bitterness that came from those years of depression; to learn the lesson from that period—and the cause of the depression, too, and the party that was in office at the time.
There was unemployment, there was fear and there was bitterness. Much of that still exists, as everyone in the House knows perfectly well. But let us also recall two additional facts. Let us recall first of all, that in 1935, in the North-East —in Wallsend, Sunderland and The Hartlepools—Conservative Members were elected to put this matter right. That is why I relate this matter particularly to the North-East, and to the "distressed areas", as they were then called.
I call in evidence a second fact. Last year, there was celebrated on the Team Valley Trading Estate the 21st birthday of the great experiment that we are really debating today. This surely shows that whatever may have been the reasons for or the causes of the fears, the depression and the bitterness. it was. in fact, in the years before the war that the foundations of this new policy were laid, and have been built on since. It is most unreasonable of hon. Members opposite to pretend that everything was evil until 1945. It was not.
We are all very happy that during the post-war years there was full employment and, we believe, improving conditions of living. There grew in the minds of my generation, at any rate, a feeling of security, permanent for all time. Sooner or later, however, one has to face the harsh facts of life. Britain cannot survive and cannot maintain a high standard of living unless we can produce competitively goods which will sell abroad. This is true whether one is speaking of a D. A. T. A. C. area. a Development Area, the London area. Honiton or anywhere else. We must be able to produce effectively and efficiently. This is the key to the standard of living of our people today whether they live in a Development Area or elsewhere.
We were recently hit by the United States trade recession. I believe that we should have taken other actions in economic matters in the way we trade in the world, and we should have done certain things earlier. But there came


the United States trade recession, and, consequently, a decline in British trade and an increase in unemployment. It is surely monstrous to suggest that this unemployment was deliberately created by Her Majesty's Ministers. Putting it at its very lowest, what political bonus can there possibly be in creating unemployment? I cannot understand the warped reasoning of hon. Members opposite. It is really nonsense and twisted thinking.
We must, nevertheless, remember that in the ex-distressed areas, these presently termed Development Areas, there are considerable fears for the future.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us why?

Mr. Williams: I will tell the House why. We must face the fact that these fears exist, but we must realise that we are sometimes carried away in this House, whether it be on the one side or the other—perhaps attacking the Government from that side or supporting them from this—and we tend to lose the balance which comes from being a little further from the party political fight. I will quote a few remarks made by Mr. Gibson at the recent annual meeting of the National Union of Seamen. I take this from a report in the Sunderland Echo dated 13th May:
There was a brighter side to the picture, however, Mr. Gibson said, and it was pleasant to know that optimism prevailed in both heavy industries and shipping circles on the North-East Coast. Orders were in hand for larger and better vessels, dry docks were being enlarged and new ones built to accommodate vessels over 60.000 tons. On the Tyne the keel had already been laid for a small super passenger liner. All these signs give me ', he said, immense hope that we shall soon have prosperity on the move, and it may not be long before the three rivers become a hive of industry.'".
I will be fair with the House. Mr. Gibson goes on to enter certain reservations about the shipping industry, and the shipbuilding industry, as well should be done.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I was present at that meeting, and the extract that the hon. Gentleman has given does not give a fair representation of the argument.

Mr. Williams: If the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr.

Hector Hughes) wishes, I will read the next sentence, which may meet his point. Mr. Gibson added:
It has been nothing less than tragic to see new vessels coming off the stocks and immediately being sent to the laying-up berths owing to the lack of charters.
That was the point I was going to make when I said that he went on to say some critical things about the shipping industry and the shipbuilding industry. I agree that I did not give the whole thing, but we have a clock here.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I still say that that is not a fair representation of the argument.

Mr. Williams: The hon. and learned Gentleman may think that. Later in the debate, if yet another Scotsman can be called, it may be possible for him to present his view.
We must maintain some balance about this issue. We now see a revival in the United States economy and we see at least the beginning of a revival in the movement of goods across the oceans. This does not really show us yet that the shipbuilding industry, for example, is beginning to recover. Certainly the shipping industry is showing no signs of recovery at this stage. Some hon. Members opposite and certainly some on this side have considerable fears and concern about the future of the shipping and shipbuilding industry. That is why I was particularly happy yesterday to hear the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation about the representations which we shall make to the United States Government about their flags of discrimination and flags of convenience policies.
It seems to me that in a large number of the Development Areas we need to look to the basic industry of the area first for providing a high and stable level of employment. That is why I put my greatest hope in a revival of the shipping and shipbuilding industry. It is here that the stimulus is needed first. In terms of the Development Areas, surely the second priority must be to restore the existing industries to the highest possible level of production. The third priority, and it is important, is to bring in new industry.
I agree with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir) when she says


that there should be a combination in Development Areas to promote the interests of those areas. It would be so much better if the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and for example, could go on a platform together to advocate the benefits of coming to Sunderland, in particular, and to the North-East in general.

Mr. Wiley: How does the hon. Member square that with his own present endeavours to persuade British capitalists to divert their capital to France? I should have thought that we should concentrate on getting British capital into the Development Areas so that new factories can be built.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hope that this dispute will not be too prolonged, because other hon. Members wish to speak.

Mr. Williams: I will try to meet that point as quickly as possible, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The hon. Member for Sunderland, North knows perfectly well that the Common Market is a fact of life. It may or may not be regrettable, but it is not such a bad thing to try to get British industry into a position where it can compete on the Continent. We can take this matter further at some other time.
In conclusion, the first priority in the North-East is to restore the prosperity of the shipbuilding industry. The second is to restimulate the industries which already operate in the Development Areas. The third and important priority is to bring in new industries. In addition, I should like to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service to come to the North-East to get the flavour of the climate there, to see how concerned people are about the future and to help them to see the problem in a balanced and even way.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I should like to join hon. Members who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. Ll. Williams) on his good fortune in the Ballot and upon the powerful and lucid speech which he made. I should also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) on his lucid contribution. My hon. Friends have enabled us to have a

debate upon a subject which is of great importance and is constantly in the minds of us all.
A good deal has been said about the general unemployment situation. This is natural and proper, because we cannot divorce the Development Areas from the general economic background. We on this side of the House, and, indeed hon. Members in all parts of the House, are relieved that the unemployment figures are down. We hope that they will continue to decrease until we achieve full employment once again.
Before I refer specifically to Development Areas, I should like to take up one point made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade which was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). The Parliamentary Secretary spoke about the figure of those in employment compared with the figure of those unemployed. I have had a look at the figures from the Ministry of Labour and National Service since the hon. Gentleman spoke, and I find that in March and April there was a decline of 58,000 and 20,000, respectively, in the unemployment figures. But, on these dates, we were not supplied with figures showing the full number in civil employment.
The figures for the end of January, if I am not mistaken, should show that the registered labour force declined by 62,000 in that month. This was more than the drop in unemployment figures. From the end of December to the beginning of March, the number of people actually in work fell by 80,000. From then to the middle of April, as I see it, unemployment was reduced by 30,000. At that time, therefore, in April, there were 50,000 fewer people at work than at the beginning of the year. That was the true position. In other words, it is the unemployment register which looks healthier and not the employment situation.
This is an ominous trend. It may have grave consequences if it continues. The Minister of Labour and National Service is now well known for his predictions about the unemployment figures. Can the right hon. Gentleman inform his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, who is to reply to the debate, how far this trend will go? We all realise that if it persists it will be


serious from a production point of view, if from no other.
Many hon. Members have drawn attention to the figures within the Development Areas. The figures of 4.5 per cent. in April compared with 2.4 per cent. for the country as a whole have been quoted, and the fact that long-term unemployment among men is higher in the Development Areas than in the whole country. My hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery referred specifically to the position in Wrexham, which is causing grave concern in North Wales. There, 53 per cent. Of all the men of 18 and over who are unemployed have been out of work for over six months. In South Lancashire the figure is 36 per cent., and the figure for Great Britain as a whole is just under 26 per cent.
One thing is abundantly clear. It is that the Development Areas are still much more vulnerable in the face of a recession than are other areas. That is the salient fact which has emerged from our debate. It has taken a recession to bring home that truth to the Government. All sorts of figures can be produced to prove all sorts of things. But the fact is that the share of the factory floor space which went to the Development Areas has fallen under a Conservative Administration. As many of my hon. Friends have pointed out, this has happened in a favourable economic climate and not in the same circumstances that obtained in the harsh and difficult years following the war. Notwithstanding the difficulties of those days, during the first four years after the war over 50 per cent. of the factory floor space was provided in the Development Areas by the then Labour Government. From July, 1945, to September, 1951, 12 per cent. of all approvals of factory floor space was in London and the South-East. Since 1951, the figure has risen to 18½ per cent.
I am glad that the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs is replying to this debate for the Government. In Wales since 1951 the share of approvals for factory floor space has fallen from 9 per cent. to just over 4½ per cent. When the right hon. Gentleman speaks about Welsh affairs we hear glowing reports of what is going to happen in Wales, that more work will be provided. The fact is that unemployment is still high and the problem has not yet been solved. Certainly

we feel that the Conservative Government, ever since the first Conservative Administration took office after the war, in 1951, have had no enthusiasm for Development Area policy.
The abandonment of Section 3 of the 1945 Act in 1952 has been mentioned. There was also the statement of the Minister of Health, who was then Minister of State, Board of Trade, to the House on 5th June, 1956, when he announced that the Government had decided to defer consideration of all proposals for the provision of new Government-financed factories or extensions under the Distribution of Industry Act, save in a few cases of special importance and urgency. What is interesting and significant about that statement is that at the same time the Select Committee on Estimates was making an inquiry into the Development Areas, and on pages xxi to xxii of its Report we read this:
Witnesses from the Board of Trade argued that, in considering the future of the Areas, regard must be had not so much to current figures of unemployment as to future economic prospects. They claimed that … they are still too dependent on their basic industries which have been proved in the past to he subject to severe and sudden unemployment. Secondly, some industries in the Areas appear to be declining.
They instanced the hand tin plate mills in South Wales. That was prophetic evidence by civil servants of the Board of Trade. That is precisely what has happened in recent months, because when the recession came the Development Areas suffered more than the rest of the country, yet when the Board of Trade officials were issuing this warning in the spring of 1956, the then Minister of State, Board of Trade, at that Box was calling a halt to all activities in the Development Areas. It is a tragedy that he did not heed the words of his own advisers.
It is clear now, clear to us on this side and, I am sure, clear to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that what was needed then was not a slowing down of building in the Development Areas but an acceleration of building so as to achieve the objective of not being over-dependent upon one or two basic industries. If there had been more building, the effects of the recent closures of coal mines would not have been so acute.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North and my hon. Friend the


Member for Abertillery were right to go back to the source and to remember what exactly the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, was expected to achieve. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), moving the Second Reading of the Bill, said it was intended
to promote a healthy and well-balanced industrial life in all parts of the country." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1945; Vol. 409, c. 837.]
Winding up the same debate, the noble Lord, Lord Chandos, who was then Minister of Production, said that
it seeks to control … what I may call the further industrialisation of certain areas."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March. 1945; Vol. 409, c. 940]
Those two quotations sum up what was then the current view of what the Act was intended to achieve. They take us back to the unbiased source of all recent inspiration in this subject, the Report of the Barlow Commission. The unpalatable truth which the House has to face tonight is that twenty years after the Barlow Commission and fourteen years after the Second Reading of the Distribution of Industry Bill in 1945, we still have acute congestion in the industrial conurbations and we still have areas of high unemployment in Great Britain. In other words, if we take an objective over-all view of the situation, we find that we have not achieved what it was intended should be achieved by the Act.
Obviously, it would be wrong and uncharitable of me not to pay tribute to those who have worked hard to make the Development Areas the success which they are in one sense, and particularly not to refer to the work of the Labour Government after the war. [Interruption.] Indeed, the figures prove it. We on this side of the House say that it is a great pity that the tempo of the drive and enthusiasm was not maintained under Conservative Governments after 1951. Both the congested areas and the Development Areas would have been far better off today if that tempo had been maintained.
Last year, faced with the problem of increasing unemployment and a contracting industry, the Government began to take measures to meet the emergency. They introduced the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act and

created the D. A. T. A. C. areas. The Parliamentary Secretary wrote 60,000 letters to industrialists. It would be interesting if we could be told what was the response to that appeal. More recently, the decision was taken to build three advance factories, one each in England, Scotland and Wales, and I am grateful that one of the factories will be in my constituency. I hope that these factories will be built very rapidly, because they are experimental and the success of the experiment depends on how quickly they will be tenanted by industrialists. I hope that building may proceed so that other areas may benefit from similar factories very soon.
So far, the 1958 Act has not been successful in my area. In Anglesey we are no better off as a result of it. The most important application made under it was by a reputable applicant for £20,000 to build a factory which would have employed 150 men. It was turned down without any reason being given for the refusal. This has been bitterly resented in the area.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North said, one of !the solutions to the problem is to give these D. A. T. A. C. areas the full benefits of the 1945 Act. They need those benefits. Hon. Members have spoken of the advantages of Sections 3 and 5 of the 1945 Act. It stands to reason that the local authorities in these areas of high unemployment are poor local authorities and they are precisely the authorities which could benefit especially from the application of Section 3. Roads, water, power, light, housing and health services are the things they need and which would enable them more effectively to attract industry into their areas.
As the Minister for Welsh Affairs is on the Front Bench opposite, I should like to ask why we cannot have one Welsh Development Area instead of three. At the moment, we have the South Wales Development Area proper, under the 1945 Act, which also includes certain D. A. T. A. C. areas, we have the Wrexham area, which is scheduled under the 1945 Act but which is also entirely a D. A. T. A. C. area and we have the North-West Wales which is solely a D. A. T. A. C. area. The country is split up in this respect. Welsh people do not like being chopped up in this way. We are a united


people, as the Minister ought to know, and we should like the country to be a united and integrated Development Area, receiving all the benefits of the 1945 Act.
So far, we feel that Government aid has been applied piecemeal and without much coherent thought. I do not think that we need be tied too rigidly to the 1945 Act, well though it has worked. Economic and industrial conditions have changed since 1945. This is all the more reason why we should consider new techniques. Perhaps new techniques could help industries on the periphery to sell their goods abroad. Certainly better and more effective planning of our industrial life and a more selective approach to industry as a whole are needed so as to find out which sections of industry are better suited to these areas on the periphery in Scotland and Wales.
Another question which the House must ask in consideration of this subject is whether the inducements which are now offered to industrialists are adequate. I cannot say that they are adequate in the new D. A. T. A. C. areas. Should there be something more by way of inducement? The words "inducement" and "persuasion" have been used in this debate—should there be something more? I was reading the report of the Barlow Commission yesterday and came across this very interesting paragraph giving the views of the Federation of British Industries on this point.
The Federation of British Industries were opposed to compulsion on industrialists in the matter of location. At the same time they were prepared to accept a policy of ' discouragement' of settlement in certain areas and ' encouragement ' of settlement elsewhere. In the case of London, a new industry, unless it could make out a special claim, might be urged to go elsewhere.
It is high time that the Government did a little less discouraging and a little more encouraging and a little more urging. There was an allocation room at the Board of Trade. Is that allocation room still working? What guidance does it give? It is no use building a factory unless one can get industrialists to tenant it. One feels that there is insufficient drive from the Board of Trade to induce industrialists to go to the areas where they are needed.
We are talking about the allocation of industry. What is the purpose and function of industry? I should have thought

it was self-evident that its purpose and function is to serve the nation. What is the nation? Is the nation the leaders of industry or even the leaders of trade unionism or Ministers of the Crown or Members of Parliament? Certainly not. We know that the nation is the humblest member of the community who has no voice except our voices in this House, who has no future for himself or his children except the future that we can create for him. He is the nation. The Government will be judged by the way in which they serve that individual. Let the Government see to it that industry does its task properly and does its duty by the humblest member in the community.

9.28 p.m.

The Minister for Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): Three weeks ago we usurped St. George's Day for the annual debate on Welsh Affairs. Today we are discussing the situation throughout England, Wales and Scotland. I must say that I am very happy that Wales is having not only the first word but the last, too.
I am speaking as Minister for Welsh Affairs and also in my capacity as Minister of Housing and Local Government. I have contacts with the planning side on which I should like to speak in due course. Both the hon. Gentleman the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Abertillery (The Rev. Ll. Williams) referred to the Barlow Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, and perhaps I might claim that my strongest right to take part in the debate is that as a private citizen I ventured to submit a memorandum of evidence to that Commission, which at any rate testifies to my own continuing interest in this subject over a period of many years. Indeed, ever since I knew the Rhondda and the South Wales coalfields, 30 years ago, I have been convinced that a vigorous policy to secure the distribution of industry such as will not allow some areas to be permanently dependent on one form of activity is an essential part of our national life and policy.
This is in a sense a private Members' day, and I want to respond by answering as many of the questions as I can that have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Sombre as the subject is, I think we are all grateful to


the hon. Member for Abertillery for having used his good fortune in the Ballot to choose it, for this is a subject to which we are all agreed that Parliament should pay constant attention and, what is more important, for the reason given by the hon. Member for Anglesey at the end of his speech, that if we do not manage these things aright we may have boys and girls leaving school in certain parts of our land who are not able to get work and whose whole outlook on life will be soured by circumstances over which they have no control.
The House greatly appreciated the manner of the speech of the hon. Member for Abertillery. I did not agree with all he said, but he did a brave and difficult thing. He ventured to seek to hold the House silent by the emotion of his gesture and utterance. Few of us can do it. Yet every one of us was impressed by the sincerity of our colleague in his speech. At the same time, I think he would be the first to grant that we can solve the problem before us today not by emotion but only by work, and it is new ideas which could be carried into practical action for which I must say I have waited almost in vain today while listening to the speeches of the Opposition.
We had some rehash of the Jay report. I studied that because I look everywhere for sources of ideas. That report threw up among other things the practical suggestion that the Board of Trade should reopen its offices in Swansea and Dundee, suggesting that it was fantastic that these should have been closed two years ago. I looked up the figures and I found that in the eighteen months since those two offices were closed factory approvals in West South Wales and in Dundee have been such as to give rise to a substantially greater number of jobs in each case than in the previous eighteen months when the offices existed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] The right hon. Gentleman must have been scraping the barrel if he felt that this was the best suggestion he could bring up in this respect.

Mr. Jay: Does not the Minister realise that unemployment also went up in the same period in both those areas?

Mr. Brooke: Yes, and I realise that since those offices were closed between 9,000 and 10,000 new jobs have been brought into existence in West South

Wales by the initiative of this Government.
The distribution of industry policy is, I believe, accepted on all sides of the House, indeed almost everywhere, though doubtfully by the Economist and by the Manchester Guardian and by some Liberal writers. In the 1930s it was difficult to influence firms to go where the nation needed them. That was because of the substantial average unemployment which existed everywhere and the absence, certainly in the earlier 1930s, of that general atmosphere of expansion which, it is part of my submission, is an essential element in a successful distribution of industry policy.
During the period after the war, it was easy to guide industry. There was a sellers' market. New peace-time factories were springing up. The big cities had suffered from bombing. People were looking for their opportunities. I do not wish to withhold credit from the Labour Government for what they did, but the task was a far more simple one than, for example, in the 'thirties. I would say that it is a most remarkable achievement. I know Wales, towards which I feel a special responsibility. Despite a certain trade recession in 1958 due to the action which the Government had found it essential to take to curb inflation, there was probably an attraction of new industries to Wales on a scale greater than in any previous year.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary at the beginning of the debate described in detail the D. A. T. A. C. arrangements and the other provisions in our powers which we are at present exercising for the steering of industry. I do not propose to go over that in detail, but I simply say that, having passed the 1958 Act some nine months ago, we are now well equipped to steer industry where we need it in this period that is coming when the expansionist atmosphere is returning to trade.
Among other questions, hon. Members asked why it was not possible to anticipate possibilities of industrial decline. Intelligent anticipation was advocated. The truth is that one can anticipate the possibility of decline but one can never anticipate with certainty the time of that decline. Everybody knew that the old tinplate mines were bound to go out one day. No one could


be certain when that would be, and the evidence of that is that as recently as three years ago Italian labour was being attracted into that area to provide employment.
When there is a situation of full employment, whatever may be the apprehensions for the future, it is literally impossible to attract other businessmen to come into such an area and put their factories there. No one can show how that time gap can be eliminated between the falling off of the old and the growth of the new.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) had ideas in his report on this subject. He said:
The Government should also completely reverse its policy of cutting down civilian work by Royal Ordnance Factories even in areas of unemployment. Where private industry persistently fails to give employment, the Royal Ordnance Factories or other public enterprises should take its place. A Labour Government would see that this was done.
The Labour Government would see that Royal Ordnance factories set to work producing large quantities of civilian goods for which there were no orders. Alternatively, in order to get such orders they would sell them at subsidised prices thereby greatly embarrassing those other industrialists whom the Government were bringing into the areas concerned. That apparently is what the Labour Government would do. To quote from the right hon. Gentleman's own report, I would say that
this is not good practical administration, but muddle.
This Government have approached all this in a more practical way.
Reference was made by hon. Members earlier to the closing of the torpedo factory at Greenock. But what has happened? That factory is being taken over by the Acme wringer firm, which in my judgment will employ at least as many as, if not more, than the old torpedo factory did and will certainly give a greater diversity of employment to that area. This is precisely what distribution of industry policy is designed to secure.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that if that factory had not been in existence, the Acme wringer firm would not have come

to Greenock, which is a marvellous argument for having advance factories for these large firms?

Mr. Brooke: I will come to the subject of large factories in a moment. The fact remains that what has happened there has worked out in the long run to the benefit of Greenock and not otherwise, and it has been done through the influence of the present Government.

Miss Herbison: The right hon. Gentleman has dealt with this question of intelligent anticipation as it affects the tinplate industry in Wales. Would he say that the same case can be made out about the coal areas in Scotland? Would he say that that was the case, in spite of all the predictions in the reports of the coal industry of what was going to happen in that area? If so, only the Government have been unaware of the situation.

Mr. Brooke: I said that it was impossible to anticipate with certainty the timing of decline. I remember an hon. Member speaking in the Welsh debate the other day advocating public enterprises being set up in remote areas where it was difficult or impossible to attract private industrialists, in order that employment may come there, and almost in the same breath speaking of panic closures of pits by the National Coal Board—a nationally-owned concern. The Opposition cannot have it both ways.
The hon. Member for Abertillery spoke of the decision of the Government to build a great factory at Swansea, in a difficult area, for the Pressed Steel Company, as a godsend to that area. The fact that the Government are willing to build on that scale shows the intensity of the drive which the Government are prepared to put into solving this very serious human problem of unemployment in the areas of depression.
If it is suggested that the Government are sitting back and are allowing things to stagnate, how can one explain the fact that only in the last few months we have decided that the new strip mills should go ahead at Newport and Ravenscraig? It may be that some hon. Members would say that that should not have been done and that those mills should have been placed in Anglesey or elsewhere where there is 10 per cent. unemployment. But let us keep our economic good sense. We


are not going to save this country's economy by forcing works to go into places which for those particular works are economically impossible.
All the way through we have got to maintain a balance in these matters. The fact that the new strip mill in Newport and the Colville strip mill at Ravenscraig will operate will have a salutary effect in stabilising the employment position in Wales and in Scotland generally.
One hon. Member spoke of the "absurd" concentrations of industry in big cities. They may be awkward, but they are not absurd. It is not absurd for the cotton industry to have been concentrated in Lancashire. There were good reasons for it. It is not absurd for coal mines to be situated on the coal. It is not absurd for consumer industries to be near consumers. It is not absurd for export industries to be near the ports. All of these have a good historical and economic explanation.
What there must be is safeguards against undue concentrations of industry in such a way that certain places are overloaded whereas others are unduly dependent on a single industry. That is the essence of the distribution of industry policy which has been followed by successive Governments. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary earlier in the debate described in detail the drastic policy which is being pursued by the Board of Trade as to the issue of industrial development certificates.
My predecessors and I in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government have been acting likewise with our planning powers. In 1955, my predecessor, now the Minister of Defence, approved the London Development Plan. In approving it, he withdrew no fewer than 380 acres in the county of London which the London County Council had desired to allocate for industrial and commercial purposes. He said, "No. That must be re-zoned for residential purposes," exactly in line with the policy which I believe commends itself to both sides of the House, and in contrast to the original proposals. The same happened in Middlesex.
Since 1938, about 1 million people have gone out of the County of London. The overloaded County of London has lost I million of its population and something like 200,000 factory jobs, which have

moved out of London, if I may put it in that way. Around each of the new towns—this is closely linked with the general policy of the distribution of industry that we have been discussing—and around all great cities, green belt plans now restrain industrial development. However prosperous a city is, it is not permitted that industries shall sprawl out and out drawing more and more people into the nucleus.
Permission to use 592 acres for industry on the Warwickshire side of Birmingham was refused between 1950 and 1957. On the Staffordshire side, 367 acres were withheld from industrial use since 1955. That was with the Government's full support, for those areas had been approved in principle as green belts around the city. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Dance) whose speech I was sorry I had to miss, will understand that I cannot say, or be taken to say, anything that would prejudge a decision I may have to make on a planning application around Birmingham on which a public inquiry will be held later in the year.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanark-shire, North (Miss Herbison) asked about overspill. Certainly it is the Government's desire to make provision for wise overspill plans from the great cities. Many of these great cities—and the hon. Lady knows Glasgow much better than I do —cannot possibly rehouse in decent conditions all the people within their own bounds. There may be argument about how far it can go, but everyone must accept that there is a surplus that cannot be rehoused there. Smaller towns at a distance from the city have been wise who have recognised that they may be able to revitalise their own life by reaching agreement with one of the big cities.
The other day I was at Thetford, a small country town, whose population had been dwindling. It recognised that its best chance of stopping that diminution and outflow of its younger people was to bring from a great city both industry and workers. Judging by the atmosphere of the relations between London and Thetford, I greatly hope that it will be a success and that the newcomers and the old stagers will merge. I had to warn some of the Thetford people that there would be Londoners


who would regard countrymen as hardly out of the woad stage, but Thetford people assured me that it was too cold to wear woad there, and that all would be well.
There are great psychological difficulties to be overcome before overspill schemes can be accepted, but where they have been accepted there is no doubt that both exporting area and accepting area benefit by it. I think the Opposition must decide what it means when it speaks of steering industry. Time and again in the course of this debate I have heard the words "The Government must plan." Do the Opposition mean that the Government should direct industry, or do they not? I believe that all of us, on both sides, have to recognise that direction of industry is out of the question, like direction of labour. Direction of labour is unthinkable. Direction of industry is, frankly, hopeless because it is no good putting an industry somewhere unless it is going to be successful. If we seek to direct industry somewhere there is no guarantee that it will be able to make ends meet. The most powerful magnet of all is a really modern factory. The right hon. Member for Battersea North asked about the building of new factories. There are twenty-eight empty Government factories now, so we should be cautious about going on building everywhere. Incidentally, I can tell him that the new factory on Merseyside will be at Speke.

Mr. Ainsley: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that the economic factor has been the direction of 10,000 people from the west of the County of Durham?

Mr. Brooke: I am not quite sure that I follow the argument of the hon. Member, but I sincerely trust he is not advocating direction of labour. [HON. MEMBERS: "The right hon. Gentleman is."] The Government are proposing as a pioneer experiment to build three advance factories before there is a tenant for them. We must see if tenants can be obtained. I greatly hope they will be, especially for the sake of the hon. Member for Anglesey, whose constituency, as I have told him before, I regard as the most difficult unemployment problem in the whole Principality.
The hon. Member for Abertillery asked for a trading estate in North Mon-

mouthshire. I doubt if we should start new trading estates while there are eight or ten Government factories empty m Wales. I think what will help the area he has in mind far more is improvement in the road communications with the Mid-lands which the Government intend to bring about. This vast programme of road improvement on which the Government are embarked will reduce remoteness. It is the relative remoteness which has been the common factor in all these areas of local unemployment. At one time these difficult areas were relatively backward in social services and health services. I think that is how Section 3 of the 1945 Act came to be written in. The position there has vastly changed since the old Special Area days. The hon. Member for Aber-finery will recognise that in the changed outlook, the changed scene in the mining valleys, the transformation of the Rhondda, for instance, since the old days of bad unemployment. Section 3 is designed to enable grants to be given for the improvement of basic services because industry might not otherwise come to those areas.
The truth is that very little has been done under Section 3 at any time, except on water and sewerage, and that is my answer to the point made by the noble Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George). It is quite true that in the early years, 1946 and 1947, a little was done on transport and power matters, but there are grants under other legislation for road improvements and the like. Generally it has been used for water and sewerage, grants for which, except in rural areas, there is no other statutory provision.

Mr. Jay: Will the Minister at least answer the main question I asked him about the proportion of factory approvals this year compared with last year for London and the Development Areas?

Mr. Brooke: I shall endeavour to do so, but I was also asked about Section 3 of the 1945 Act. There is now, after a number of years of general prosperity, nothing like the same need for the improvement of these basic services—they have advanced so much. Nevertheless, we sent out a circular on 12th May and a number of applications and inquiries have been received in response to that circular in respect of Section 3. Those


applications are being investigated. A few seem certainly eligible for consideration, but I should be misleading the House if I were to suggest that there was a great deal to be done there, simply because of the great advance since the need for basic service grants was first perceived many years ago.
Extra work of a public character, nevertheless, has been authorised on a very substantial scale to cover this time gap between the decline of the old industries and the attraction of the new industries which are coming to many places. The other day I gave the House a figure of £1¾ million of extra work which had been authorised in Wales alone. That sort of work by public authorities we must surely all agree, however, is a palliative and not a complete solution.
The trade outlook is brightening, and as the outlook brightens we must seek to influence expansion into those areas which are in need of work. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir) compared it with the flow of oil. We must see that the oil flows where it is needed to lubricate. We have powerful instruments for this purpose, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary explained, and as trade becomes more and more expansionist they will grow and become more effective.
I did not quite understand all the figures given by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North. I did not know where he obtained them. For the first three months of 1959 the factory area approved for London was 2½ million sq. ft. and for Scotland and Wales it was 5J million sq. ft. Bearing in mind

the relative populations of those areas, it will be seen that the Development Areas are getting their full share.

The right hon. Gentleman wants the Development Areas extended. I do not know whether in his youth, before he was as tall as he is now, he ever stood on a soap box to see over other people's heads in a crowd. That is all right if one does it alone, but if everybody gets on to a soap box, nobody is any better off and there is great insecurity of tenure. It is no use turning the whole country into a Development Area and thinking that the areas of unemployment will gain.

In the last few weeks my right hon. Friend's Budget has been designed to promote the expansion of trade and industry. I understand that the Opposition would have diverted £200 million out of that Budget to other purposes. By the financial and economic policy which we are following we intend to seek and to find solutions of this very human problem which we have discussed today.

I assure the House that the Government will keep an open mind to any ways of improving their instruments for steering industry into the areas where it is needed. The trade winds are freshening, thanks to the Government's policy. Unemployment fell substantially in March and again in April. If all the business indicators which are available to me are any guide, I have little doubt that when the May figures are available they will show that that process is continuing.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 179, Noes 144.

Division No. 115.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Aitken, W. T.
Browne, J. Nixon (Cralgton)
du Cann, E. D. L.


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Bryan, P.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn


Armstrong, C. W.
Campbell, Sir David
Errington, Sir Eric


Ashton, H.
Carr, Robert
Farey-Jones, F. W.


Baldwin, Sir Archer
Channon, H. P. G.
Finlay, Graeme


Balniel, Lord
Chichester-Clark, R.
Fisher, Nigel


Barber, Anthony
Cole, Norman
Fletcher-Cooke, C.


Barlow, Sir John
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Freeth, Denzil


Barter, John
Cooper, A. E.
Gammans, Lady


Batsford, Brian
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Gibson-Watt, D.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Corfield, F. V.
Glyn, Col. Richard H.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Godber, J. B.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gough, C. F. H.


Bingham, R. M.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Graham, Sir Fergus


Bishop, F. P.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)


Body, R. F.
Currie, G. B. H.
Green, A.


Bossom, Sir Alfred
Dance, J. C. G.
Gresham Cooke, R.


Braine, B. R.
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Grlmston, Sir Robert (Westbury)


Brewis, John
de Ferranti, Basll
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt. Col. W. H.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Gurden, Harold


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hall, John (Wycombe)




Harris, Reader (Heston)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Russell, R. S.


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Sharples, R. C.


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maccles'fd)
McAdden, S. J.
Shepherd, William


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.
Maddan, Martin
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Storey, S.


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Marshall, Douglas
Studholme, Sir Henry


Hirst, Geoffrey
Mathew, R.
Teeling, W.


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Mawby, R. L.
Temple, John M.


Hornby, R. P.
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Horobin, Sir Ian
Medlicott, Sir Frank
Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Mott-Radclytfe, Sir Charles
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Howard, John (Test)
Neave, Airey
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Vane, W. M. F.


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Noble, Michael (Argyll)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)
Nugent, Richard
Vickers, Miss Joan


Hyde, Montgomery
Oakshott, H. D.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Iremonger, T. L.
Page, R. G.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell; (St. M'lebone)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Partridge, E.
Wall, Patrick


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Peel, W. J.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Keegan, D.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Webbe, Sir H.


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Pitman, I. J.
Webster, David


Kershaw, J. A.
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Kirk, P. M.
Pott, H. P.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Langford-Holt, J. A.
Powell, J. Enoch
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Leavey, J. A.
Price, David (Eastlelgh)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Leburn, W. G.
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Legge-Bourke, Mai. E. A. H.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. 0. L.
Wood, Hon. R.


Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Rawlinson, Peter
Woollam, John Victor


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Redmayne, M.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Linstead, Sir H. N.
Ridsdale, J. E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Longden, Gilbert
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Mr. Brooman-Wbite and


Loveys, Walter H.
Roper, Sir Harold
Mr. Wintelaw.


Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby






NOES


Alnsley, J. W.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Mitchison, G. R.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Grey, C. F.
Moody, A. S.


Baird, J.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)
Hale, Leslie
Moyle, A.


Blackburn, F.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Coine Valley)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)


Blenkinsop, A.
Hamilton, W. W.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)


Blyton, W. R.
Hannan, W.
Oram, A. E.


Boardman, H.
Hastings, S.
Owen, W. J.


Bonham Carter, Mark
Hayman, F. H.
Padley, W. E.


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Healey, Denis
Paget, R. T.


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)


Bowles, F. C,
Herbison, Miss M.
Parkin, B. T.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Peart, T. E.


Brockway, A. F.
Hylton, A. V.
Pentland, N.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Holman, P.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Houghton, Douglas
Popplewell, E.


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Prentice, R. E.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Champion, A. J.
Hunter, A. E.
Probert, A. R.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Hynd, H. (Accrington))
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Cliffe, Michael
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Rankin, John


Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Janner, B.
Redhead, E. C.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Reid, William


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Reynolds, G. W.


Cronin, J. D.
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Kenyon, C.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Diamond John
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Ross, William


Donnelly, D. L.
King, Dr. H. M.
Short, E. W.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Lawson, G. M.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Edelman, M.
Lipton, Marcus
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Skeffington, A. M.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
McAlister, Mrs. Mary
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Fernyhough, E.
McCann, J.
Snow, J. W.


Finch, H. J. (Bedwellty)
MacColl, J. E.
Sorensen, R. W.


Fletcher, Eric
McInnes, J.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
McLeavy, Frank
Sparks, J. A.


Galtskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Spriggs, Leslie


George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Ca'then)
Mahon, Simon
Stonehouse, John


Gibson, C. W.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Stones, W. (Consett)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Mellish, R. J.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)







Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Watkins, T. E.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (A b'tillery)


Swingler, S. T.
Weitzman, D.
Winterbottom, Richard


Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Woof, R. E.


Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Zilliacus, K.


Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)



Viant, S. P.
Wilkins, W. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Warbey, W. N.
Willey, Frederick
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Simmons.

Main Question again proposed.

It being after Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Committee Tomorrow.

ROADS, WEST COUNTRY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bryan.]

10.9 p.m.

Mr. Edward du Cann: I am very grateful for this opportunity to raise a subject of great interest in my constituency and, indeed, in the west of England as a whole—roads in the West Country. At the end of December I had the honour to lead a deputation of chairmen of works committees and highway committees of the six western county councils to see my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. That deputation was received by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation in the unavoidable absence of my right hon. Friend through illness, and I take this opportunity now of thanking my hon. Friend for the courtesy and charm with which, as usual, he was good enough to receive us.
In a letter which an official at his Ministry wrote to the clerks to the county councils a little time afterwards, it was said:
The Minister regrets that he can only endorse what Mr. Nugent said—that he realised that the line of policy being pursued by this Department "—
that is to say, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation—
at present bore somewhat hardly on many parts of the country, including the South-west.
That is unquestionably so. My purpose in speaking on this subject tonight is to place on record the facts about our difficulties and special problems: to ensure, so far as possible, that the Minister understands our situation and our point of view, and to assure for ourselves a place in the queue of priorities should there be a change of policy and a greater allocation, as we hope there will be in due time,

for roads. In my judgment, we have an excellent Minister, very ably supported by his Parliamentary Secretary, and my object now, as much as anything else, is to strengthen the arm of my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend should there be an opportunity for them to press their case more strongly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The trunk roads from London to the West are quite inadequate for the traffic they have to carry. Queues up to 10 to 15 miles long are commonplace in summer on roads like A.30 and A.303. At many points there are bottlenecks, and the carriageways are quite inadequate. It has become a joke told by travellers now that it is no use getting up to travel during the night because all one does is to catch up with the residue of the day before's traffic.
The other approach roads to the West are inadequate. To take A.38 as an example, there are many places where the carriageway is no wider than 20 ft., which is absurd in this modern day. Our local roads are inadequate. On the county roads of Cornwall, there are over 200 places where there are water fords of one kind or another. In Devon, there are some roads which, at peak times, carry as many as 18,000 vehicles a day but which are, in places, too narrow for two buses to pass. There is one place where the carriageway is no wider than 11 ft. 7 ins. One can sometimes, not only in the summer, take as long as twenty minutes to cross a town the size of Taunton.
I could give a thousand more examples of the inadequacy of our trunk roads and our local roads and smaller roads if time allowed. The clearest indication of the defective state of our roads in the West is given by the fact�žI believe that my hon. Friend knows this very well—that they are not up to the Ministry's own standards.
It is sometimes suggested that the West is England's backwater. It is suggested that there are very few people living there and that what we do in the West is unimportant. Therefore, so it is said,


our roads do not matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The population of our six western counties is now nearly 3½ million. Vehicle registrations there are as high as they are in most places in England. It is true that we live in many small towns, but I believe that speedy transport and reasonable communications are as essential to small factories—perhaps the only industries in the towns where they are situated—as to larger towns. I completely refuse to accept that our manufactures in the west of England are one whit less important than the manufactures of some of the other, perhaps, larger towns in Great Britain.
We have our large towns and our cities, too. There are Plymouth and Bristol, and there are substantial concentrations of industry in the West Country. We have our large docks, factories, quarries and mines, including coal mines. Many of our towns are important administrative centres. Taunton, in my constituency, is a good example. We do other things besides work in factories.
Agriculture, I suggest, is a tremendously important industry in the economy of the country as a whole. The three most westerly counties alone produce milk products of one kind or another to a total value of over £350 million per annum. This is industry on a very large scale and I refuse to believe that the production of food is one whit less important than the production of manufactured goods. We can do without refrigerators, but we cannot do without our daily bread. We in the three Western Counties produce 15 per cent. of all the milk consumed in this country, 10 per cent. of the pig meat and 5 per cent. of the beef. I could give many other examples.
In sum, the West is no backwater. It is a busy, active community, doing important work for the country as a whole. Another service which we provide is tourist facilities which we make available to people who wish to visit us for holidays and to see the beauties of Exmoor, of the Cotswolds and other parts. Approximately 4 million people visit the West Country each year as tourists. Half of them come by car and about 15 per cent. by coach. I believe that industrial output in this country would not be so great if there were not opportunities for work-

ing people to come to the West Country for a jolly good holiday and to forget their work for a while.
We must not assume that this is only a matter of local importance. The tourist facilities which we offer are important from the national point of view as well. The chambers of trade are launching a "Come-to-the-West" campaign, and we hope that tourists who come to England from abroad to do the circuit of Edinburgh, Stratford-upon-Avon and London, thinking that they will see the whole of England, will be attracted to see a part of England which is as typical as any other and which is more beautiful than many others. I hope that it is not supposed that it is only our sometimes unseasonable climate which drives people to take Continental holidays. I believe that often it is the unsatisfactory state of the roads.
I should now like to turn to the human side of the picture. It is essential to provide adequate roads where they are the only means of communication. My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be well aware of the situation which we face in the West Country in connection with the closing of branch railway lines. Very often in the West Country roads are the only means of communication.
It is also essential to provide adequate roads when the accident rates are high. In 1957, in the West Country as a whole 10,000 people were injured and 183 killed. In 1958, in the County of Somerset, there were 6,520 accidents, 79 people were killed and 2,980 injured. These figures are too high.
To take a particular example, on the road passing through Long Ashton, a three-mile stretch of road, there are seventy-one accidents a year, which is higher for a short stretch like that than almost anywhere else in the country. This is certainly very much higher than the national average of most other countries. On the 50-mile stretch of the A.38 road which goes through Somerset, there is one accident per mile per month. Bad roads bear a heavy share of responsibility for this state of affairs.
By any standard, the roads in the West Country are narrow, winding and often unsafe. Having regard to the limited amount of money available for expenditure on roads, we accept that there must


be priorities. We are happy to see the great industrial areas given priority. That must be right. But, if we cannot have our motorways for twenty years or so, it is reasonable that we should obtain an increasing amount of money to spend on improvements.
What is the position? Of the forty-eight English counties, Somerset comes fortieth in the cost per mile of maintenance of and minor improvements to roads. That state of affairs is typical of the other counties in the South-West. My hon. Friend will know that major improvements are of particular interest to us because of our special difficulties in the widening of roads and the lack of verges. What might be minor improvements in other counties are major improvements in the West. The amount of money available for expenditure on major improvements has recently been severely cut. As I have said, we have sent a deputation to see my right hon. Friend to discuss the matter. The City of Bristol sent a similar deputation only a short time ago.
The present state of affairs has caused a certain amount of dislocation and made planning difficult. To some extent it has been a disencouragement to the many excellent men who are chairmen of our works and highways committees and to our county surveyors who are anxious to discharge their responsibilities in an effective and efficient manner. The counties are ready to do their part. In Somerset, for example, this year we have provided £57,000 over the amount necessary to match the Ministry grants. I am advised that the county would be willing to spend approximately four times that amount of money on roads if we were to have the additional money from the Ministry. Roads are the only one of our county services which is not expanding.
The improvements in main roads which we have effected—for some work is going on—cannot cope with the present rate of traffic increase. Schemes for classified roads of any magnitude which we have in mind have at present to remain on the shelf. Yet—this is the point which makes us unhappy—the amount of money required is tiny compared with the national need. If we in the West Country were granted an extra £250,000, I think that much of the present unhappiness would disappear.
I wish to be more particular with regard to Somerset. It is a good thing to see so many hon. Members representing constituencies in the West Country present this evening, and it may be that they will wish to particularise about their own interests. What do we want today for Somerset? With regard to minor maintenance and improvement of roads for this year, 1959–60, we asked to have work authorised to the total amount of £260,000 in order to improve services, improve visibility, make new footpaths, give better drainage and to go in for a few medium-size widening schemes. We have been permitted to spend something like half that amount only, and I hope that the sum may be increased. We suggest that for county roads there should be an increase of 15 per cent. over what has been allocated.
Of the trunk roads, in 1959–60 we shall only widen Monmouth Street in Bridgwater, despite the fact that there is a crying need to improve the A.303, the A.4 and the A.38, to mention only three roads. Regarding county roads, this year we are happy to say that we shall be undertaking five schemes and believe that we could usefully spend another £250,000 on Congersbury and Locking and Hinsley Hill, outside Bristol. Large improvements would include by-passes and large bridge reconstructions which will cost over £50,000. No large trunk road improvements will be carried out this year, nor large improvements to county roads, although there are many schemes we wish to put in hand, including the Taunton relief road, the Long Ashton bypass and improvements to the A.34 and the Yeovil relief road.
It is not surprising that many people, and not only partisans of road construction, are asking whether we have our priorities right in the matter of road improvements. We spend large sums of money on railways which have been covered by protective legislation over the years, so much so that the canals of England are largely disused. But we spend comparatively little on roads. It must be very difficult for my right hon. Friend to hold the balance aright, but I cannot help feeling that it may well be that at present the balance is not correct.
A motorway going west from Bristol is not in the current programme, and it seems doubtful whether it will appear in


the programme for the next four years. We have to consider whether we should take some action to build that motorway ourselves, either by making arrangements to raise a loan or, alternatively, by introducing a system of toll roads, on the principle that if one wishes to travel first-class one should pay first-class. There are strong arguments against both suggestions, as I am aware, but I put them forward because I believe it is much better to propose something practical and to try to get something done than to leave matters alone and connive at the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. If we could have a motor road, it would help industry and bring increased prosperity to the West Country. I hope we shall make a certain amount of progress in the future.
I would not want my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to think we are ungrateful for what is being done at the moment. There are many of us in this House who have seen the exciting plans there are in Birmingham, exciting plans for motorways in other parts of the country, and we realise that much more is being spent on roads than ever before in this country's history. That is fine. It is a very good thing. We congratulate my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend upon that, but we know that the Minister is to carry out a review of the allocation of funds in the next month or so, and we hope that he will agree that we have a good case for special consideration. We feel our need is urgent, and we hope that he will give us the green light to get on with the work which is urgently calling to be tackled.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: I am most pleased, even though it is only for one moment, to have the opportunity to support the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) in the plea which he has made to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary tonight—though I must remind him that I did my best to stop him coming here in what was a very good fight.

Mr. du Cann: Hear, hear.

Mr. Wilkins: Perhaps we who represent constituencies in the West Country have been a little too lenient with the Ministry of Transport. We have not badgered the Ministry. We certainly have not badgered it as hon. Members

have who represent other parts of the country, and I think it is the result of that that we have not had that allocation of funds for road improvements in the West that we ought to have.
I want to concentrate attention on the Bristol area. We have been to the Ministry and failed, although I would not withhold my need of praise for the Minister for what he thus done, because I think he has succeeded in getting more from the Chancellor of the Exchequer than any of his predecessors. I hope that he will be able to persuade the Chancellor to let him have some more money to make the improvements for which we are asking.
The hon. Member for Taunton was too modest to mention the town which he represents, except, perhaps, in an indirect way. It is quite true that now we have this road improvement at Bridgewater and it will facilitate the movement of traffic so that it will be a little easier than it was before, but it still remains a fact that on entering Taunton one runs into a real bottleneck that holds one up for an hour, or two hours, even, at the height of the summer season. There is need for some further improvement in the Taunton area.
I hope that the hon. Member will agree with me when I say that I believe the greatest need is in the County of Devon. One can get down as far as Devon fairly comfortably, but when one gets into Devon one really does start to run into traffic trouble, especially making one's way along those winding roads. I suppose that if we were to take the bends out of them they would lose some of their charm, but it would facilitate travel. The difficulties are great at all times, but especially in the summer season on the road to Launceston, though in Cornwall one is able to move with a certain amount of facility, with far more than one is able to in Devon. I do not know whom we congratulate upon that, whether it is the county council or not.
One of the chief problems among West Country roads—and I thank the hon. Member for raising it—is the main road to Weston-super-Mare, which one feels when one starts to drive out of Bristol and to go down through Long Ashton. There was an improvement scheme, I believe, which has temporarily been shelved, to cross the river farther down


at Templecombe. This might dispose of the need for any major improvement, for the moment at any rate, on the Long Ashton road, and at the same time it would catch up with the Bridgwater Road.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary has listened to the pleas put to him tonight and that he will try to persuade the Minister that there is such a place as the West Country and that it matters just as much as the north-east of England or the north-west of England, and I hope that something will be done to help us.

10.29 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent): I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) on his good fortune in securing the Adjournment tonight and on the ability with which he has used it to advocate the case for road improvements in Somerset, in particular, and in the South-West, in general.
Let me assure him that I do not think that the South-West is a sleepy backwater. Indeed, I was born in Devonshire myself, and I should, therefore, deny most heartily anything of the kind. I well know the narrow lanes of Devon and Somerset, and although our road programme is going ahead rapidly and we are rapidly improving our roads, I think that for a long time yet there will be a good many winding lanes in Devon. Somerset and Cornwall, so that the beauties we all admire will be there for some time to come and, I hope, for ever.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on presenting his case once more. He referred to the occasion last December when he brought a delegation—an unusually large one of some 20 Members of Parliament representing six counties—to make out the case for the South-West, and very ably he did it. He has made a further plea tonight that the needs of the South-West shall be kept before us.
The Government's policy with regard to the road programme is, as has been stated on many occasions—though, perhaps, I should state it again tonight�žto give absolute top priority to our five main projects. Those are well known, and, in the main, serve our industrial centres, connecting the Midlands to London, to South Wales; connecting Lancashire to the Midlands and to London, connecting the North to the South, and connecting London to the West.
The South Wales radial is in our five main projects. The first part of it will start this year, with the Maidenhead bypass, being built to motorway standards. The second part—the Slough by-pass—will be authorised next year, linking on to the Maidenhead by-pass, and we have now started investigating the next part of the radial, from Chiswick to Slough, with the very interesting suggestion of an overhead road over the Great West Road which will carry it across the factory area to reach the country beyond. Preparations are now going ahead for the other end of the radial—the Severn Bridge approaches and the Severn Bridge itself —so that connection with the West is very much alive. But, of course, the connection with South Wales has a higher priority than has the South-West itself, of which my hon. Friend has been principally speaking.
Our view has been that, although, of course, there is industry—and important industry—in the South-West, we must nevertheless give priority to the area where industry is heaviest—in the Mid lands. Indeed, it is on the prosperity there that no doubt a large number of the tourists to the South-West depend who come and take their holidays in that delightful part of the world. So we feel it right not only to give priority to these five main projects, but to endeavour to complete them as quickly as possible so that the nation will receive the benefit of the new roads as quickly as it can be done.
It is a common experience—and, indeed, the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) referred to one part of it when he said that he brought a delegation to see my right hon. Friend and myself to plead the case for Bristol—for representations to be made from various parts of the country. There are 61 counties in the country, and many county boroughs, and from time to time most of them seem to find their way here to tell us that there is something they would like. On the other hand, I had the rare experience the other day of an urban district in the West Country coming to tell us that it did not want a bye-pass. I said that it was an interesting change because, as a rule, they come to ask for one.
I therefore make the point to my hon. Friend that there are many others waiting in the queue, but we stick to our view


that this is in the national interest. It would have been easier, politically, to have spread the work out thin all over the country, but in terms of the nation's economic interest it would have been completely the reverse of the best because, instead of getting a number of major roads completed quickly, which would give great industrial and economic benefit, we would have just a little bit here and a little bit there all over the place. Although that would have been popular in the neighbourhood, the nation's economy would not have benefited to the same extent.
So we have stuck rigidly to this policy and we intend to pursue it. But it does mean, as my hon. Friend rightly said, that there is a reduction in the amount of work that the South-West is able to do this year compared with last year. That is because these major schemes of building motorways are now in full swing and, therefore, require an even greater share of our money than they were using last year and the year before. I recognise how disappointing this is for the county surveyors and county councils concerned, but it is inevitable.
My hon. Friend said that the amount of money for maintenance and minor improvement work ought to be increased by 15 per cent., but I hope he will take note of the fact that the total for the South-West this year of £2,835,000 is 9 per cent. more than they got in 1958–59 and, therefore, goes some way towards meeting what he would like to have.
He mentioned the Taunton relief road, and I have full details of that. I assure him that it is ever before our minds.
May I thank my hon. Friend for presenting in a clear and moderate manner the case for road improvements in the South-West? We appreciate—I do particularly—the farming importance of the area, especially in Somerset, and the importance of tourism. Both those need good roads to connect the South-West with the rest of the country. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing once again to our notice not only the facts but the strong feelings behind them. At present, strong though these needs are, I am afraid they must take second place.
But the South-West is not forgotten. There is some evidence of this in the fact that we have just allocated an additional

£93,000 to the South-West which, with the county contribution, will make about £150,000, because we found in the last month that we had a little bit of elbow room which we did not expect, and so the South-West got a substantial slice of it—not quite as much as the quarter of a million that my hon. Friend would like but, at least, it shows that that part of the country is not forgotten.
The turn of the South-West will come not in this phase but in the next one. We are now spending £55 million this year on new roads and major improvements in England and Wales. It is, as my hon. Friend has rightly said, the biggest road programme that has even been undertaken in this country. We intend to go on. We expect to spend £65 million next year, and this will settle down to art least £60 million a year. Who can say What will come in the future? With an excellent Government like this, which really builds roads, there is a prospect that we might spend even more. If we are able to do so, undoubtedly the South-West will be very near our hearts and will have a good slice of what is going. But in this phase and in the national interest, I am afraid they will have to take their turn.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for recognising so handsomely that they could not come into this phase. Burt let me assure them that they are not for-gotten. They will come in the next phase and they will be just as generously treated when the time comes. I hope my hon. Friend will go back to that delightful part of the countryside over Whitsun and bring some comfort to his many supporters there. He has put forward a good case for them, and it has been well received.
Incidentally, I shall be in the South-West myself during the Whitsun Recess—I might even find myself in that part of the world that you represent yourself, Mr. Speaker—so I shall get some personal evidence of what new roads are required there. I hope that my hon. Friend will go away reassured that the Government have the case well before them.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-one minutes to Eleven o'clock.